Regulatory Compliance Group work in progress
The Department's Building Industry Performance Group has been split into two new groups: the Regulatory Compliance Group and the Sector Capability Group.
The Regulatory Compliance Group focuses on the regulatory provisions of the Building Act 2004. The Group's broad functions include:
- monitoring, reviewing and improving performance outcomes of the regulatory building control system, for example conducting Technical Reviews of territorial authorities and building consent authorities
- designing and implementing a system of accreditation and registration to be used to regulate building consent authorities
- selecting, appointing and managing the accreditation body that will assess prospective building consent authorities
- managing and strengthening relationships with territorial authorities, regional authorities and other key industry stakeholders
- investigating and resolving complaints about performance issues
- administering the approvals and renewals of building certifiers
- establishing a product certification scheme and developing guidance information
- providing advice, guidance and assistance on the above schemes to the regulatory building control industry.
Work is progressing on a number of programmes, including the building consent authority (BCA) accreditation and registration scheme.
BCA accreditation
This project covers, amongst other workstreams, the development of the proposed standards and criteria that an organisation will have to meet in order to be accredited as a BCA. To support the accreditation process, the Department is also developing scheme rules. These are the operational systems and processes necessary to operate the accreditation scheme.
The Department has made considerable progress in developing a draft set of proposed standards and criteria for accreditation. We expect to release a consultation paper in November 2005 on these standards and criteria and the proposed processes that organisations will have to go through in order to achieve accreditation. Submissions will close early next year and, following an analysis of these, final decisions about the content of the standards and criteria will be made.
BCA registration
The Department is also developing the registration component of this scheme. As with the accreditation programme, scheme rules are being developed and will be used to evaluate the achievement and maintenance of registration criteria by BCAs.
The work on developing this component has been initiated and includes the development of a register of accredited BCAs, the identification of possible registration requirements, fees, and the registration application and assessment processes. Opportunities for consultation on the first of the registration components will be included in the 2005 consultation paper.
Monitoring and reviewing the performance of TAs and BCAs
The Regulatory Compliance Group is responsible for reviewing territorial authorities and building consent authorities to ensure they perform their statutory duties under the Building Act appropriately. This programme effectively replaces the Building Industry Authority's Technical Review programme.
The Department is finalising a number of initial and follow-up reviews, and public reports on Technical Reviews undertaken by both the former Building Industry Authority and the Department. The findings of these reviews are available on the Department's website and are important for organisations undertaking building control functions.
Many of the issues identified for specific organisations are common across others.
The accreditation assessment process will likely cover many of the issues dealt with in the Technical Review process. Organisations should consider using material produced through the review process to prepare for accreditation.
Product certification
The Regulatory Compliance Group is overseeing the design and establishment of a third-party building product certification scheme. Significant work has recently gone into developing a draft model for this scheme and the Department has recently completed a consultation exercise. The feedback from this is now being considered before government makes regulations to enable the scheme to operate.
The Department expects that it will develop a range of material on different issues throughout 2005 and 2006.
More information about each of these projects and others is available on the Department's Building officials section.