My subcontractors' applications get certified on guesswork

Down the chain the roles reverse, and their application starts your clock. The window to respond is short, the site team is busy, and so the assessment becomes an impression: last month plus a bit, or roughly what the programme says it should be. Certify high on guesswork and money leaves that is slow and expensive to bring back; certify low without a basis and the certificate is an argument waiting to be had, with your name on it.

A real assessment is measurement inside a deadline: the application read against what the site's records say is actually there, actually done and actually evidenced, and a certificate produced with a stated basis that can be defended if it is ever tested. That is unglamorous monthly work, which is exactly why it slips, and exactly why it can be handed to someone whose job it is.