How the statutory clock works

Every statutory job gets its deadlines computed once, server-side, the moment it’s created — never on a device, and never from a date a client supplies.

What it is

When a work order is created, the platform stamps a statutory block onto it if the hazard and severity put it in scope: an investigate-by deadline, a written-summary deadline, and a safety-works deadline, each computed in working days (weekends and English bank holidays excluded) from the date the case was reported — never from when someone happens to open the record. An emergency-severity case instead gets a flat 24-hour clock for all three.

These first three dates are a projection made at the moment the case is raised. Once the investigation actually concludes — recorded via the investigatedAt stamp — the written-summary and safety-works deadlines are recomputed against that real conclusion date, additively, as a sibling effective block. The original projection is never overwritten; every reader of the clock prefers the effective dates once they exist, and falls back to the projection until they do.

How to do it

1. A case’s statutory clock starts automatically the moment a survey is raised under a hazard and severity that puts it in scope — there’s nothing to switch on. A works order raised to remediate it tracks that source survey’s own clock rather than carrying a fresh one of its own.
2. As work progresses, record each stage as it genuinely happens: investigatedAt when the investigation concludes, summaryProvidedAt once the written summary is sent, and worksBegunAt once safety works begin. Each stage can only be stamped once — statutory stamps are write-once, exactly like the underlying regulation intends: a contemporaneous record of when you actually acted, not a date you can revise afterwards.
3. An on-site presence check-in can auto-stamp worksBegunAt the moment an operative checks in at the property, if the investigation is already concluded — no manual stamp is needed in that case.
4. Watch the job’s own statutory strip or drawer for the live countdown against whichever deadline is currently outstanding.

How it integrates

The statutory clock feeds the Dashboard’s compliance board, the job drawer’s own countdown, the deadline-alert sweeps (see Deadline alerts and escalation), the evidence bundle’s timeline, and any webhook configured for work_order.stage_recorded and work_order.deadline_breached/work_order.deadline_approaching. General (routine, non-hazard) jobs and works-kind orders never carry a statutory block at all — a works order tracks its source survey’s clock, not a fresh one of its own. See Phase 1 today for the exact investigate/summary/works timescales this arithmetic implements, and Jobs with no statutory clock, and internal targets for which hazards carry none at all.

Common problems

• A stage stamp is wrong and I need to fix it. It can’t be edited or re-stamped once set — statutory stamps are write-once by design, so the record always shows exactly when the stage was genuinely marked done.
• The written-summary and safety-works dates changed after I logged the investigation outcome. Expected — they re-anchor to the investigation’s actual conclusion the moment you record it, replacing the original projection with the real, effective deadline.
• A job I’d expect to carry a clock doesn’t show one. Check whether its hazard type and severity actually put it in scope — see Jobs with no statutory clock, and internal targets.