Traditionally a ladder inspection is of the ladder - not the method of use. If you are connected to the users by contract, you could be liable to criticism and the company you work for could plausibly be liable in law (depends on the relationship). If you owe any kind of duty of care to possible users, and you spot an issue but choose to do nothing, you might be seen as being jointly liable in a civil case. If you are a member of IOSH, your code of conduct may require you to do something about it. If you are a moral person, your morals may require you to do something about it. Log it as an issue for resolution, not necessarliy as part of the inspection though :-)

But why would we be liable. Say were on a massive project, with hundreds of ladders in scaffold racks around the job. If an operative then "chooses" to carry out an unsafe act, without us being aware of it, urely that couldn't come back on us. Of course if we seen an unsafe act, we would stop it there and then.

As you don't state the type of inspector or inspection I must surmise. If you are inspecting all ladders on site you would apply a) to all those that are not in use i.e. in storage. You would apply a) + b) to those that are in use. Not knowing your relationship with the steelfixer it's difficult to comment. However if he is a subcontractor to you as a principal contractor, then yes you may have a liability. But the degree of liability depends on many factors. For example his level of training, availibity of supervision amongst others.