My site diary won't stand up

It is the most common record-keeping failure in the industry, and the most painful, because the discipline was there: someone wrote in the diary every day. But the entries record conclusions instead of events. Delayed by others. No access. Waiting on information. Each felt obvious on the day; eight months later it names no gang, no area, no cause and no duration, so it proves only that the writer felt delayed, which was never the question.

When the claim is argued, the other side answers vague entries with specific ones: their allocation sheets, handover records and minutes, each naming dates and places. The tribunal or negotiator is not choosing between your delay and their denial; it is choosing between a record that can be tested and one that cannot. A diary full of conclusions loses to a thinner file with names and numbers in it.

The fix costs one sentence per entry: who was where, what stopped them, who or what caused it, and for how long. The habit is easy to describe and hard to keep alive on a busy site, which is why it needs setting up around the people who hold the pen, then checking monthly against what actually happened.