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

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authorities of their functions under the Building Act 2004 (the Act), and previously, the Building Act 1991 (now repealed).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 support and 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 main findings

Over the course of the review, Waitakere City Council implemented a number of improvements to its building control practices and these efforts have been recognised and welcomed by the Department. However, the Department considers that further improvements are still required for the Council to strengthen its building control operations in a number of areas to ensure it is consistently able to meet its obligations under the Building Act 2004. Particular attention needs to be given to:

developing, documenting and implementing certain policies, processes and procedures to underpin the Council's building control operations
reducing instances of non-compliance with the Building Code
ensuring it has sufficient staff numbers to meet workflow and the necessary collective technical skills, competencies and expertise within its building control unit
incorporating quality assurance mechanisms across its functions (eg, peer review, internal audits of completed work).

Our main message is that the Council's work to date is a good start, but ongoing effort is required.

Building control policies, processes and procedures

A common theme identified across the review was that a number of areas in the Council's building control operations were not always underpinned by sound policies, processes and procedures. Formal policies and procedures identify and encourage best practice, help achieve consistency of practice and can also act as a training tool for less experienced staff or provide a refresher for experienced staff. The Council developed or implemented a range of process improvements during the review, but there is still a need to ensure they are implemented properly and consistently used by staff. The Department identified a need for the Council to make improvements in the following areas.

Revising its delegations so they specifically reference the relevant provisions of the Building Act 2004
Further strengthening its vetting of building consent applications (eg, updating its front counter checklists)
Implementing its revised consent processing checklist
Improving the content of the project information memoranda it produces
Documenting when the use of consent conditions and notations is appropriate
Improving handling of amendments to building consents and restrictions and limitations imposed on building consents issued
Ensuring its new procedures covering alternative solutions and producer statements are consistently applied
Including compliance schedule issues within its new computer Pathways system
Strengthening its methodology and processes for conducting inspections

Determining compliance with the Building Code

Reducing instances of non-compliance is a critical issue for both the Council's consent processing and inspection staff, and lies at the heart of its regulatory responsibility. The Council needs to continually strive for performance improvement in these areas.

The Council should ensure it has a sound system for vetting and processing building consent applications. The Department found that the Council was not consistently rejecting building consent applications that contained inadequate supporting information to ensure compliance with the Building Code would be achieved.

Compliance with the Building Code was not being consistently achieved, particularly in relation to accessibility issues, weathertightness and fire compliance. Before issuing a building consent or code compliance certificate, the Council must be satisfied, and document why it is satisfied, that the building will or does meet all relevant clauses of the Building Code.

At the time of the review, the Council faced continuing challenges to ensure it issued building consents within the statutory timeframe and this was adding pressure to the Council's workloads. Following the review, the Council advised it has improved in this area and now achieving around 77 percent compliance with statutory processing timeframes. While this is a significant improvement to the rates observed during the review, there is still considerable work to be undertaken to maintain any improvements and increase this rate further to meet the requirements of the Building Act 2004.

Resourcing and technical competency

The review found that the Council was significantly under-resourced and still needed to recruit to meet the volume and nature of work it was facing. The review found an equally important priority was the need to develop and implement a more rigorous competency assessment and work allocation system. This needs to link to related components of its operations and should include:

assessing the competency of building control staff (and applicable contractors) based on objective evidence
developing a collective competency skills matrix for the building control unit based upon individual competency assessments that can be used to identify key skill gaps (and capacity shortages in areas the Council has competent staff) and how to remedy this
using such competency assessments to ensure building control work is always allocated according to competence
determining individual professional development/training plans
identifying appropriate technical leaders and mentors.

Quality assurance processes

The Council needs to strengthen the quality assurance system it applies to its building consent processing, inspection practices and certification functions. For example, the Council needs to ensure regular peer reviews, conduct appropriate internal audits of completed work (eg, checking building consent applications accepted into the system and whether they were processed properly), and provide additional training and guidance.