Technical reviews of territorial authorities
Technical reviews of territorial authority building control units are one of the ways the Department of Building and Housing fulfils its responsibility for monitoring and reviewing how territorial authorities and building consent authorities perform their functions, duties, and powers under the Building Act 2004.
Technical reviews are also under-taken to help these organisations improve and fulfil their obligations under the Act. They are a key tool to assist organisations to:
- enhance the performance of their building control activities
- implement appropriate systems, processes and resources, so they can carry out their building control operations effectively and more efficiently
- effectively fulfil their obligations under the Building Act and building regulations.
Technical reviews usually involve a three-phase process designed to help territorial authorities improve their regulatory building control operations. They are carried out by the Department's Consent Authority Capability and Performance Group and usually take about 18 months. Technical reviews examine a territorial authority's or building consent authority's building control operations under 18 broad terms of reference. This involves an initial visit and a follow-up visit about 12 months later. The final phase of the review process involves producing a public summary report identifying the main findings and recommendations, and the territorial authority's response to those findings, across all phases of the review. Figure 1 below summarises the technical review process.
Figure 1: Overview of the technical review process
Findings of recent technical reviews
During the past 12 months, the Department has conducted technical reviews of the building control units of six territorial authorities. The organisations reviewed reflect a mix of small, medium and large territorial authorities. They were:
- Wellington City Council
- Selwyn District Council
- Franklin District Council
- Waitakere City Council
- Porirua City Council
- Ruapehu District Council.
The technical reviews identified recurring issues, such as the challenges of ensuring building work complies with all aspects of building law, limitations in the collective technical skills and experience of building control units, resourcing and capacity concerns, and building control operational policy and quality control issues.
On a positive note, the technical reviews identified a number of improvements in building control processes in some of the territorial authorities assessed. These include a range of good practice initiatives, such as improved consent vetting, and improved policies and procedures to underpin building control work. The reviews conducted over the past year also highlighted a number of recurring performance issues. In general, the councils assessed needed to:
- strengthen methods for assessing staff competence by developing a technical skills competency assessment system and matrix records
- strengthen the technical knowledge and expertise of building control staff by providing additional training and outsourcing work where the requisite in-house capability is unavailable
- implement quality assurance processes (such as peer review and internal audits of completed work) at all relevant stages of consent processing, approval and inspection
- employ additional building control staff to ensure that sufficient capacity is available in all operational areas to meet the demand for building control services
- ensure that adequate formal policies and procedures are developed to underpin all aspects of their building control operations
- ensure that compliance with the Building Code is consistently achieved at all stages of the consent processing and inspection, particularly in relation to fire compliance, and access and facilities for people with disabilities.
A number of performance short-comings have often emerged where these issues have not been addressed by building consent authorities. These have included councils approving building work which does not meet all the clauses of the Building Code (and other legislative requirements) and consent applications with poor quality or incomplete supporting documentation (for example, missing the necessary weathertightness detailing).
Many of the key findings reflect challenges common to almost all council building control units. Other councils that have not recently been reviewed by the Department may find the summary reports of council reviews useful. These are available on the Department's website. The technical review process and review findings may also prove beneficial to organisations preparing for building consent authority accreditation.
The summary technical review reports of councils that have been reviewed are posted on the Department's website at: www.dbh.govt.nz/technical-reviews