Technical Review of the Building Control Operations of Porirua City Council Summary Report

Date: October 2007

Important notice to people reading this technical review report

The Department of Building and Housing (the Department) carries out technical reviews as part of its function to monitor and review the performance by territorial authorities and building consent authorities of their functions under the Building Act 2004 (the Act) and, previously, the Building Act 1991 (now repealed). The purpose of a technical review is to assist the territorial authority or building consent authority under review to improve its building control operations.

A technical review is not an audit. A technical review is a performance review based on a snapshot of information about the building control activities of the territorial authority or building consent authority. It cannot be taken as a full and comprehensive review of the competency and quality of all of those activities. A technical review is carried out by:

assessing whether the processes and procedures used by the territorial authority or building consent authority under review are sufficient to enable it to satisfy the requirements of the Building Act 2004, the Building Act 1991 (legislation applying during part of this technical review), and related Regulations, including the New Zealand Building Code (the Building Code)
assessing the processes and procedures used by the territorial authority or building consent authority under review for weathertightness compliance
providing advice and assistance on best-practice building control procedures to help the territorial authority or building consent authority under review achieve an effective building control regime that is consistent with national objectives
enabling the Department to receive comment and feedback from the territorial authority or building consent authority under review about its practical operations, ability to assess building compliance, and the role of the Department in this process.

1 Summary of key messages

Over the course of the review, from June 2004 to February 2007, Porirua City Council (the Council) made a number of improvements to strengthen its building control practices. The Department acknowledges the work undertaken during the review, but considers that further improvements to the Council's building control operations are still required to ensure the Council is able to consistently meet its obligations under the Building Act 2004.

This section summarises the key areas needing further improvement as found during the Department's final on-site visit to the Council in February 2007. It is recognised that the Council has continued its work to strengthen its building control operations after the review, during the course of its preparatory work for accreditation as a building consent authority.

A particular area of concern found during the review was that, in a number of cases, the Council had made very limited progress to implement the recommendations of the initial review. Consequently, the Department had to reiterate recommendations in the follow-up stage of the review process (see parts 4.5, 4.6, 4.7, 4.8, 7, 8, 13, and 14 of the report's terms of reference).

The Department found that the Council deferred resolving some issues identified in the initial review as it made plans to prepare for building consent authority accreditation. At the time of the follow-up technical review the Council was still planning and trialling systems and procedures to support its accreditation preparation and application. The appropriateness of the proposed systems and processes could not be considered in the report as they were not implemented at the time the site visit took place.

The Department considers that the Council needs to give particular attention to the following issues.

Policies, processes and procedures to underpin the Council's building control operations

A common theme identified across the review was that some of the Council's building control functions lacked supporting and sound policies, processes and procedures. Areas where this is relevant include:

building consent conditions and plan notations
granting waivers and modifications to the Building Code
building on land subject to erosion
alterations to existing buildings
change of use of buildings.

Additionally, in some areas the Council needs to improve existing procedures to ensure more consistent and effective implementation of those procedures. The key examples found included:

developing a consistent and rigorous policy and procedure to underpin its building consent processing activities
appropriately referencing the Building Act and Building Code in its new policy on amendments to building consents and updating its computer system to adequately record whether amendments to a consent have been checked, assessed or approved
developing more comprehensive procedures to ensure all building control officers assess proposed alternative solutions and producer statements in a consistent manner and clearly document decisions and the rationale for their decisions
strengthening policies, procedures and checklists used for conducting inspections to ensure all relevant information is appropriately documented and inspections are conducted using a consistent methodology.

Checking compliance with the Building Code

The Council was not consistently rejecting building consent applications that contained inadequate information to enable it to make sound and timely decisions on whether to grant or refuse such applications. The Council needs to reasonably believe that the provisions of the Building Code would be met if the building work was properly completed in accordance with the plans and specifications that accompanied the application.

The Department also identified that compliance with the Building Code was not being consistently achieved, particularly in relation to weathertightness compliance, access for people with disabilities, and fire compliance. In some cases, there was a noticeable lack of site-specific construction detail accompanying building consent applications to demonstrate compliance. Other issues included:

ensuring project information memoranda consistently contain all required information
ensuring that where a construction review is a condition of the building consent, the review is undertaken and evidence of this is provided before final sign-off
requiring producer statements to demonstrate compliance with Building Code Clause B2 (Durability). Note: there is no statutory basis for requiring producer statements.

Resourcing and technical competency

The Council needs to provide staff with significant training in a number of areas of building legislation including waivers, alterations to existing buildings, notices to fix, changes of use and building on land subject to natural hazards. Staff also require further Building Code and building compliance training. Where training had occurred, the Department found that staff were not always effectively applying this knowledge in their day-to-day work.

The Department found a number of additional resource issues impacting on the Council's ability to effectively undertake its regulatory building control activities. In particular, the Council needs to:

develop a longer-term strategic plan for staff acquisition and retention
continue to enhance its sharing of technical knowledge among building control staff
continue to develop and invest in the technical skills of its building control staff, particularly in relation to accessibility, fire compliance, protection of adjoining properties, external moisture and surface water compliance
ensure adequate time and resources are allocated to the consent processing and inspection of weathertightness compliance and implementing the other recommendations made in the initial review
employ additional building control staff, including filling the vacant cadet position and providing further administrative support to free up technical staff
continue to develop its skills matrix to identify training requirements of staff
ensure staff have adequate access to appropriate equipment and technical resources.

Quality assurance processes

The Council needs to implement and formally document its quality assurance mechanisms (such as peer review, internal audits of completed work, continuous improvement processes, training and provision of guidance) across all appropriate stages of its consent processing, inspection and approval work.