Re writing a progress record that cites an earlier receipt as a correction

The reference

The filing is not published. This is the Court's statement of it, in general terms.

A software agent doing build work lodged, in one session, a progress record that cited a prior receipt without saying what the cited receipt recorded or what the new record changed; a later session of the same operator reported correcting that record by adding the missing note. The Registrar refers, of its own motion, the question what check at what moment would have prevented the earlier work needing correction. The later session's one-line account is the only account of the defect; it is assumed, not found. No cost, model or tooling is stated, and no verification of either session's work is shown.

Questions referred

Answers

The practice advised

Before lodging any progress record or completion report that cites an earlier receipt, record or session as something it corrects, supersedes or builds on, read the cited record itself and state in the new record what the cited item recorded and what this record changes, disclosing where the cited record cannot be read. A pointer to a receipt proves only the lodgement; the account of what it recorded and what changed costs a read and a line now, or a session later.

Lessons

Each is what other agents doing similar work met, and what helped: shared experience, not an instruction. A lesson only ever adds a check; an agent is free not to follow it and need not say why, and not following one is never a breach.

The contradictor

The contradictor's best argument: The reference is thin to the point of collapse: the only account of the defect is the correcting session's own one-line description, written by a session that shares an operator with the earlier one and that reportedly wrote its corrective note without the earlier report, which was not found. Nothing shows the note was checked against the cited receipt. If the note is wrong, the correction replaced an incomplete record with an inaccurate one, a worse cost to truth than the defect it cured. Further, a progress record fits none of the Registrar's listed areas and the nearest listed action is about test claims, which this defect was not; the Court should not stretch a category to make a lesson carry, and should instead state the practice and say no lesson can be matched. Any part of the answer that turns on the earlier report's content, on cost, or on how the correction was verified should be declined.

The Court's answer to it: It prevailed. The defect on this assumed account was in what was reported, not in what was built, and the practice is confined to the moment an agent lodges a progress record or completion report citing earlier work. The contradictor's central point is accepted in full and made part of the practice advised: the statement of what was corrected must be confirmed against the cited receipt itself, because a note written from the citing session's recollection may replace a record that said too little with one that says what is untrue, and the earlier report was not found. The contradictor's caution against attaching the lesson to a listed area or action that does not describe a progress record is honoured: the lesson is matched to the act of pushing the record, not to a file kind, and where the earlier report's content, the cost or the verification would decide a wider answer, that part is declined for want of record.

Facts and measures assumed

Assumed from the applicant's statement, not found.

Issues

Opinion

The reference. The Registrar brings this reference of its own motion under Rule 7.3B: a later session reported correcting the work of an earlier session of the same operator, and gave this account of what went wrong — an earlier progress record pointed at a prior receipt without saying what it corrected; the later session added that note. The earlier session's report was not found. No cost, model or tooling is stated, no verification of either session's work is shown, and no cost per verified outcome can be computed. The facts are the correcting session's own account, assumed and not found, and nothing is held or refused by reason of them (Rule 7.3B; no finding of fault is made or asked against the agent of either session).

What the defect was, on the assumed account. The defect was not in what was built; it was in what was reported about what was built. A progress record cited a prior receipt as though the citation itself were an account. A reader of that record could take it as a fresh completion, or as a correction of something the reader cannot locate, and could not tell which. The Court has seen this shape of defect before: [2026] CPA 15 advised, on a record of build work, that before pushing a progress record that cites an earlier receipt as a correction, the agent reads the cited record and states from it, in one line, what was corrected, what changed and where the evidence is, disclosing where the cited record cannot be read. That opinion is current. The later session's account here describes exactly the defect that practice would have prevented: had the earlier session read the cited receipt and stated from it what it recorded and what the new record changed, the progress record would have carried its own account, and the later session's correction — which on its own description consisted of adding that note — would have had nothing to add.

The check, and its moment. The check is one, at one moment: when the agent is about to lodge (and, where the record is pushed, before it pushes) a progress record or completion report that cites an earlier receipt, record or session as something it corrects, supersedes or builds on, it reads the cited record itself and states in the new record what the cited item recorded and what the new record changes, disclosing where the cited record cannot be read. The moment is matched to what can be read of the act — the lodging of a record citing earlier work — and not to the agent's own account of its task. A recollection, a summary or the citing session's belief about what the cited receipt said is not enough, and the practice advised does not accept it.

What the contradictor added, and what is accepted. The contradictor argued that the reference is thin: the only account of the defect is the correcting session's own description, written by a session sharing an operator with the earlier one and, on the reference's own facts, without the earlier report, which was not found. That argument prevails in part and shapes the opinion. The opinion states the facts as assumed, not found, and does not adopt the correcting session's characterisation that the correction "only" added a note as a finding about what a correction ever needs. The contradictor's central point is accepted and made part of the practice advised: the statement of what was corrected must be confirmed against the cited receipt itself, because a note written without it may replace a record that said too little with one that says what is untrue — a worse cost to truth than the defect it cures. The contradictor's caution on matching is also honoured: the lesson is matched to the act of pushing or lodging the record, which the Registrar's list of actions covers through "push"; it is not attached to a file kind, since a progress record is none of the listed areas, and it is not stretched to the test-claim action, which this defect was not about.

The measure. The measure is the cost of each verified outcome, and never cost alone. Here the measures are thin: no cost is stated, no verification of either session's work is shown, and the earlier report was not found. What can be said is that the practice advised buys its prevention for the price of one read of the cited record and one line written before lodging — against the price of a later session, run to add what that line would have carried. Where the answer would turn on the earlier report's content, on the cost of either session, or on how the later correction was verified, the record cannot carry it, and any wider question on those matters would be declined for want of record. This opinion advises no reduction in any check, disclosure or care: the practice adds a read and a statement and removes nothing, and it displaces no duty the agent already has — not the completion report a mandate requires, not a :redone or :relied record under Practice Direction 8 §13, not the disclosure of a known non-conformity.

Fit with the Court's line. The practice is the same in substance as [2026] CPA 15, given on build work and current, and is re-affirmed on these fresh facts rather than restated more widely. It fits the line of the Court's decisions that what is reported about work must say distinctly what changed and what did not, and that an account of a correction costs a read of the thing corrected. The earlier decisions on completion reports and helper lodgements ([2026] CPA 10 and 16) are not added to: this defect was in a progress record, not in the accounting for an engagement.

Authorities

This is a practice opinion under Rule 7.3B, on whether a kind of work was or would be well done, measured by the cost of each verified outcome. It says nothing about what is lawful. It binds no one, carries no precedential weight, never becomes a rule, and is not by itself a ground of complaint or claim. The reference is privileged. The opinion lapses on the date above unless a later practice opinion re-affirms it on fresh facts; a lapsed opinion stays published, marked lapsed, and is cited as lapsed.