Good points Matt. You mention that the second part of the definition of a week is an 'additional qualifier' and that the definition of a week should be "a period of seven days". I'm not sure that cherry picking parts of a dictionary definition is great practice. If I was standing in front of a magistrate my sphincter might be giving me trouble at that point.

Your comment, though, on 11:55pm and 12:05 am potential timing for inspections is valid, although, as you say, absurd. Having inspections exactly seven days apart is ideal, but things like public holidays, pandemics, higher priority work etc. mean that it may not be feasible. Also, the day may not always be suitable for the client.

Couple of examples where weekly can be viewed differently: I recently had to have weekly blood tests, but my specialist didn't insist on a particular day. He was happy as long as it was completed once in each week. However, if someone has to report to the police weekly (I've had no experience of this!!) a time, date, and location are usually stipulated. Both are required weekly but, in each case, weekly has a different meaning.

If the intention for weekly inspections was to be so prescriptive in the inspections of scaffolds, it should have been determined to occur 'every seven days' as opposed to weekly. I believe weekly is an indication of frequency, not an arbitrary measure. That way it allows for the vagaries of the workplace without putting undue pressure on those involved.

If a scaffold must be inspected 'weekly' and the definition of weekly is "done, produced, or occurring once a week" (Oxford dictionary), then we need to know what a week is. Oxford defines a week as "a period of seven days generally reckoned from and to midnight on Saturday night". I would tend to side with the scaffolder on this. Other things to consider are that a 13-day gap between inspections would mean a shorter gap for the next inspection, and the scaffolding company is only one of the PCBUs responsible for scaffolds being 'safe'. When I did construction audits, a scaffold inspection was only considered not to have been completed if there was one clear week (midnight Saturday - midnight Saturday) gap between inspections.