M-22 Conflicts of interest

M-22 Conflicts of interest refers to regulation 17(2)(i) and must be read in conjunction with regulations 5 and 6.

Purpose

All identified and potential conflicts of interest will be handled in a professional manner.

Roles and responsibilities

• All employees and contractors
  All employees and contractors have the responsibility for dealing with identified and potential conflicts of interest.
  
• (TBA)
  The (TBA) has the overall responsibility to identify and manage potential conflicts of interest.

Policy

A critical element in ensuring consumer confidence is maintaining absolute credibility and independence of the consent process. The Building (Accreditation of Building Consent Authorities) Regulations 2006, regulation 17(2)(i) requires building consent authorities to have a procedure for identifying and managing conflicts of interest.

Effectively implemented policies, systems and processes will protect both the building consent authority and consumer against possible instances or even accusations of any ‘conflict of interest’.

The rationale behind managing conflicts of interest is to ensure a building consent authority is independent from organisations/people undertaking building or design work, and has no financial interests in the building.

Key requirements of managing conflicts of interest are:

• Implementing appropriate policies, processes and systems for managing conflicts of interest.
• Avoiding ‘self-certification’ by building consent authorities.
• Building consent authority staff must be free from any personal commercial, financial, political or other pressures that might affect their independence.

(Example Only)

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