Short answer

Usually yes, but it's worth a sanity check. Most councils run "negative reporting" — a clean asset just gets marked Passed, and you only fill in a checklist and raise a defect when something is actually wrong. So a run of all-passed inspections with no defects is completely normal when everything genuinely is fine. What you're watching for is the other explanation: an inspector who passes everything without really looking, so real faults never get logged. If one person never raises a defect while others regularly do, that's usually a training nudge, not proof the estate is perfect.

Detail

A passed inspection is a real record in its own right — it's your evidence that the check happened and the asset was fine on that date. You do not need a defect for an inspection to be "complete" or useful. This is why negative reporting works: the field team moves quickly through the assets that are fine, and only slows down to capture detail on the exceptions.

The flip side is that the system can only surface what people log. A defect is how a fault becomes a tracked issue with a fixing job attached (see How does the defect workflow work — from a failed inspection to resolution?). If faults are being spotted in the field but never turned into defects, the record looks clean while the problems sit unmanaged — and the audit trail that protects the council if something later goes wrong isn't there.

A few sensible checks if the "all clear" picture doesn't feel right:

  • Compare people. If most inspectors occasionally raise defects and one never does — despite doing plenty of inspections — that inspector probably needs a quick reminder that spotting and logging a fault is part of the job, not a failure to be avoided.
  • Compare to reality. If you know a play area has a worn bearing or a bench needs a bolt, and no defect has come through, the process isn't capturing what the team already knows.
  • Make raising a defect easy. People skip steps that feel like hassle. On a check that fails, the app offers a pre-filled defect (title, photo, a marker on the photo) so it's a few taps — reassure the team it's quick and expected.

None of this means chasing defects for their own sake. A genuinely well-maintained estate will show lots of passes and few defects. The point is to be able to tell the difference between "everything's fine" and "nobody's logging anything".

Watch-outs

  • A passed inspection is still a report. Don't treat "no defect" as "the inspection did nothing" — the pass record is the evidence it happened.
  • One inspector who never raises a defect is the signal to watch — far more telling than the overall count, which is dominated by the assets that really are fine.
  • Don't set targets for defect numbers. That just encourages trivial or invented defects. Coach for honest reporting, not a quota.
  • Failing an inspection never forces a defect — the operative still chooses to create one (see If I mark an inspection item as a fault, does Civic.ly raise a defect automatically?); the risk is that a fault gets neither a fail nor a defect.