Our strategic direction
The Department has an important leadership role to play in working with the building and housing sector to lift standards and performance. We also need to look ahead and consider how our buildings and built environment can better meet New Zealanders’ needs now and in the future, and how to best respond to changing building technologies and systems, and changing housing needs.
We are committed to making an effective contribution to the government’s overall priorities through:
- implementing sector-wide reform and working to develop refinements to streamline the building design and consenting process that supports the supply of quality, affordable homes
- working with the sector to encourage learning, to enhance and support professional behaviour and improvement in skills and knowledge to achieve system efficiency
- fostering investment in research into building science and building design
- improving the sustainability of the built environment so that it contributes to a strong economy, positive living environments and effective communities
- raising consumer knowledge of, and confidence in, housing, building and construction issues through access to quality information and advice
- delivering integrated, connected, responsive and accessible services that are valued by New Zealanders
- continuing to build the capability and performance of the Department to deliver value for New Zealanders.
The Outcomes Framework (see page 12 of our Statement of Intent 08/11 for more detail) depicts the connections between our capability initiatives, outputs and key strategies to deliver on intermediate outcomes, our overall outcome, and the government’s priorities.
Achieving our outcomes
All of our activities seek to contribute to the overall outcome: the people of New Zealand have access to quality homes and buildings that meet their needs, reflect the New Zealand environment and contribute to a sustainable New Zealand.
We have identified four intermediate outcomes required in order to achieve this overall outcome. Those intermediate outcomes are as follows:
- Buildings and homes that perform well in the New Zealand environment
- A vibrant building, construction and housing sector with skilled building and housing professionals
- Homes and buildings that meet the changing needs of New Zealanders
- Confident building and home owners, tenants and users.
Our contribution to these intermediate outcomes is directed through the seven strategies described in our Statement of Intent (page 12). Six of the strategies require us to work closely with others, including other government and non-government bodies, local government, industry stakeholders and consumers. The seventh strategy is about building our capability and performance internally.
Further information
Read the Briefing for the Minister for Building and Construction [PDF 428KB, 79 pages]
Read the Briefing for the Minister for Housing [PDF 297KB, 35 pages]