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Technical Review of the Building Control Operations of Wellington 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). 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, and 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, 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 in respect of 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 Overview

Purpose

This report provides a summary of the results of a technical review of the building control operations of Wellington City Council (the Council) carried out in August 2006. The report outlines:

  • the role of the Department and the Council in regulatory building control
  • the methodology used in the review
  • the Department's key findings and recommendations
  • the Council's progress in implementing the Department's recommendations
  • issues requiring further improvement.

The Council

Wellington City Council services an area of approximately 290 square kilometres and has an estimated population of 188,500 (as at June 2006). The Council employs 1440 staff to carry out its various roles in the city. There are a total of 84 employees making up the Building Consents, Licensing and Customer Services teams. Of these 84 employees, the following are usually engaged in regulatory building control functions.

  • Three team managers
  • Six team leaders
  • 39 building officers
  • 18 administration and support staff

The Department recognises that the Council, as with many other territorial authorities, has a challenging task in a busy environment.

Review process

Technical reviews usually involve a three-phase process designed to assist territorial authorities and building consent authorites to improve their regulatory building control operations. They are carried out by the Department's Consent Authority Capability and Performance Group, according to terms of reference that cover a range of capacity and capability issues. Sections 3 to 5 of the report outline the methodology supporting technical reviews.

Technical reviews usually involve two on-site assessment visits to the council concerned by the Department, an initial assessment and a follow-up assessment around a year later to gauge the Council's progress in implementing the recommendations made in the first visit. In the case of Wellington City Council, however, the Department did not conduct a follow-up review because it considered that the performance issues identified and the recommendations made in the initial review have been, or are being, adequately addressed by the Council.

Key findings from the review

An on-site review of Wellington City Council's building control operations was undertaken by the Department in August 2006. The review found that for the most part the Council was successfully meeting its statutory obligations. However, the Department identified several areas where improvements to the Council's building control operations were required to ensure the Council is able to meet its obligations under the Building Act 2004. The main findings are summarised below.

Technical competency of building control staff

The on-site review found that the Council needs to significantly strengthen the technical knowledge and expertise available to and in its building control unit. The Department found a large number of examples where the Council was undertaking building control work in-house where it did not have the requisite technical competence, particularly in relation to the inspection and approval of commercial buildings. The Department considers it important that building control staff are appropriately skilled and experienced in the work they are allocated to ensure compliance with the Building Code, Building Act 2004 and Regulations is accurately assessed and consistently achieved.

The Council should ensure all staff are provided with adequate ongoing professional development and technical training, especially around specialist weathertightness compliance and accessibility requirements of the Building Code. The Council should also:

  • ensure staff are effectively implementing the knowledge gained from training provided
  • reassess its mechanism for evaluating staff competence
  • engage external expertise in cases where it does not have the in-house technical capability or capacity to assess a specific compliance area.

Compliance-related issues

The Department found that the Council was largely meeting its statutory obligations; however, the Department highlighted a number of areas where the Council could enhance its building control operations and improve compliance and service. These included:

  • ensuring project information memoranda produced by the Council consistently contain all necessary information; in particular focusing on drainage and geotechnical information for new subdivisions (where appropriate)
  • conducting regular internal audits to ensure consent conditions are used in a responsible and appropriate manner
  • proactively following up on outstanding building work for which a code compliance certificate has not been issued
  • clarifying when it was appropriate to issue a notice to fix as a means to require non-compliant building work to be made compliant (as opposed to using site instructions)
  • ensuring every producer statement it accepts clearly refers to all relevant Building Code clauses
  • considering ways to enhance the processes underpinning decisions on whether to accept producer statements (eg, the review noted that some councils maintain records of producer statement authors and assessment processes to assist in their decision-making)
  • ensuring that all overdue building warrant of fitness certificates are followed up
  • considering methods of improving the level of accessibility compliance.

Quality control processes

The Council needs to develop and implement a more robust process for peer review and quality control of its building consent processing and inspection activities. In particular, the Council needs to review its processing and inspection methodology for determining compliance with Building Code accessibility provisions, weathertightness and signage in commercial buildings. The Council needs to strengthen its procedures for peer review and quality control of building consent processing and inspection activities, as noted above, to ensure:

  • all building consent applications comply with the Building Code and code compliance certificates are only issued once complete compliance has been achieved
  • inspections, their outcomes and action points are appropriately recorded and all required documentation and conditions fulfilled before approval
  • staff are working within their level of technical competence and are effectively applying knowledge gained through training
  • designs for systems or construction methods/materials that are outside the scope of in-house expertise are assessed by technically competent external experts (eg, weathertightness or fire compliance specialists).

Update on Council's progress towards implementing review findings

Since the on-site review, the Council advised it has undertaken a range of initiatives to implement the Department's recommendations and strengthen its building control operations. Some key initiatives include:

  • reviewing the process for issuing project information memoranda
  • requiring peer review of any fire design outside of Acceptable Solutions
  • developing and adopting new work instructions for the allocation of work to building officers and the need for supervision where an officer is allocated work outside their assessed technical competence
  • reviewing and amending work instructions for a number of processes to include supervision requirements, and giving further direction and guidance to staff on a number of matters such as:
    - the process for inspections
    - handling variations on site
    - acceptance of documentation establishing compliance or supporting the Council's assessment of compliance
    - accepting expert opinion on compliance matters
    - issuing notices to fix
    - handling new information during processing
    - issuing code compliance certificates
  • employing two additional staff for its building warrant of fitness system (receipt and audit activity)
  • undertaking further staff training on accessibility compliance
  • implementing new processing and code compliance certificate checklists as part of the work of a regional cluster group of territorial authorities
  • formalising its process for assessing staff competency involved with processing of complex designs.

Conclusion

As the issues identified in the 2006 review visit have been, or are being, adequately addressed by the Council, the Department did not consider there was a need to return for a follow-up visit to the Council. This decision reflects our overall conclusion that we consider the reviewed parts of the Council's building control operations are being actively improved.

The Department has a role to play in helping to achieve efficient and effective building control practices in the industry and aims to do this through collective input from the Department, territorial authorities and building consent authorities, building practitioners and other relevant industry stakeholders. The Department will continue to carry out performance monitoring and review functions of territorial authorities and building consent authorities in accordance with its statutory requirements under the Building Act 2004.