Technical Review of the Building Control Operations of Queenstown District Council Summary Report
Overview
Purpose
This report summaries of the results of a technical review of the building control operations of Queenstown Lakes District Council (the Council) via their contractor Civic Corporation Limited and latterly Lakes Environmental. This technical review was carried out between November 2004 and December 2007.
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 to action the Department's recommendations, and
- areas requiring further improvement.
The Council
Queenstown Lakes District has an estimated population of 34,000. Lakes Environmental, a Council-owned company, was established to deliver regulatory services on behalf of Queenstown Lakes District Council, including its building consent processing activity, undertaking building inspections and issuing code compliance certificates. It employed 19 building control staff to carry out those regulatory building control functions. The Department recognises that during the course of the review the Council, like many other territorial authorities, had a challenging task in a busy environment.
Review process
Technical reviews involve a three-phased process designed to assist territorial authorities and building consent authorities to improve their regulatory building control operations. This process involves two on-site review visits (an initial review and a follow-up review) spaced over time to provide a measure of the Council's progress to implement the Department's recommendations. Reports were produced for both the initial review and the follow-up review. The third stage of the review is the publication of a summary report for the whole process. This report is published on the Department's website.
2004 initial review
At the time of the initial review the Council was contracting Civic Corporation Limited (CivicCorp) to undertake its building control functions, including processing building consents and conducting inspections. The initial review highlighted a significant number of areas for improvement and made 22 recommendations across different parts of the Council's building control operations. It found that the Council was not always complying with statutory obligations such as statutory timeframes or ensuring building work complied with the Building Code at all stages of the consent processing and inspection process. The review also identified a number of resource issues, which were affecting the Council's ability to undertake the volume of building control work it was facing. In particular, the Council needed to address the limitations in the technical knowledge of its building control staff and fill existing vacancies. Furthermore, it was identified that the backlog of expired building warrants of fitness needed to be cleared.
While the initial review report found that the Council had developed a limited Policy and Procedures Manual, which covered some building control processes, this needed to be further expanded and enhanced. In particular, the Council needed to improve its building consent processing and inspection methodologies and reassess its procedures for lodging and vetting consents.
2007 follow-up review
The Department returned to the Council in October 2007 to do a follow-up review. By this time Lakes Environmental Limited had been established and had successfully implemented some of the recommendations made in the 2004 initial review report (see terms of reference 4.2, 8.2, 8.3 and 10). In most cases the 2007 review found that Lakes Environmental had only partially implemented the recommendations made (see terms of reference 3, 4.1, 4.3, 4.4, 4.6, 5, 6, 7, 8.1, 9, 12 and 16).
However, the Department also found a number of recommendations from the initial review had not been implemented. The Department, therefore, had to reiterate these recommendations (see terms of reference 4.5, 11, 13, 14, and 17).
Improvements made during the follow-up review
Over the course of the review the Council made a number of changes to strengthen its building control practices - either through CivicCorp until 2007, and then Lakes Environmental Limited. The Department acknowledges that work, which in places continued after the follow-up review visit as Lakes Environmental underwent its accreditation assessment for the Building Consent Authority Accreditation and Registration Scheme.
Some of the key areas where the Council was performing reasonably well or had made improvements in, during the review included:
- implementing a new organisational structure
- accurately collecting and reporting building control statistics
- its compliance with statutory timeframes for issuing of PIMs and code compliance certificates
- formalising a peer review process for vetting applications and strengthening its overall building consent processing procedure
- designing a procedure for issuing (or refusing to issue) code compliance certificates and notices to fix (although further work is needed to effectively implement the procedure)
- considering different enforcement options available under the Building Act when owners are not meeting their building warrant of fitness obligations1
- developing a procedure for the acceptance of producer statements (although further work is required to ensure all staff use it accurately)
- formalising its policy and procedures for covering change of use requirements, dangerous and insanitary buildings, and identification of earthquake-prone buildings
- compliance with the accessibility provisions of the Building Act 2004.
Areas needing further work after the follow-up review
Further improvements were still required to the Council's building control operations to ensure it is able to consistently meet its obligations under the Building Act 2004. In summary, improvements were required across three broad areas. Each is discussed below.
Implementing building control policies and procedures
A common theme identified across the review was the importance of the Council's building control operations being underpinned by sound, formalised policies and procedures. Since the initial review, good progress was made to develop new policies and procedures. The Department found, however, that many new policies were yet to be fully implemented, or that some staff were unaware of them. A key recommendation was that work to implement new policies should be prioritised, particularly in the following areas.
- Building consent vetting procedures, to ensure applications lacking sufficient detail and evidence are not accepted (see terms of reference 4.1)
- Building consent processing and inspection methods, by implementing and formally documenting quality assurance mechanisms (such as peer review, internal audits of completed work, training and provisionof guidance) (see terms of reference 4.3 and 4.5)
- Consent conditions, which were still being used to cover up for deficient documentation (see terms of reference 4.4)
- The code compliance certificate review process (see terms of reference 4.9)
- Alternative solution procedures (see terms of reference 5)
- Accepting producer statements (see terms of reference 6)
- Weathertightness compliance (see terms of reference 7)
- Applying restrictions and limitations on building consents (see terms of reference 8)
- Issuing compliance schedules and the building warrant of fitness regime (see terms of reference 9)
Compliance with statutory obligations
One of the review's key findings was that the Council (through both CivicCorp and Lakes Environmental) was not always achieving a consistent level of compliance with the Building Code at all stages of the building consent processing and inspection process. Timeframes for building consent processing varied considerably due to staff resourcing constraints, staff absences and high workloads. These factors were noted in both review visits, but were not addressed.
The Department made a number of recommendations related to Lakes Environmental's compliance with statutory obligations, including that Lakes Environmental:
- identify, and put in place, initiatives to improve compliance with the Building Act's statutory timeframes for processing building consents applications. This includes developing a long-term strategic plan for the recruitment and retention of building consent processing and inspection staff (as discussed in terms of reference 11)
- prioritise strengthening its building consent vetting and lodgement system. As noted above, the Department found that Lakes Environmental was still accepting building consent applications that did not contain adequate information to enable sound informed decisions to consistently be made. This adds considerable pressure to Lakes Environmental's building consent processing workload
- ensure compliance with the Building Code is consistently achieved by introducing a peer review system for completed work, reviewing staff training provided to staff, and ensuring the training is effectively implemented.
Resourcing of the Council's building control operations
Despite the Council's organisational reform, there were still significant capacity and capability limitations that needed to be addressed to enable Lakes Environmental to meet current and foreseeable work volumes and technical capability requirements, and to effectively undertake their regulatory building control responsibilities. Many of the underlying problems were not addressed since the initial review and, in a number of places, the Department has reiterated the same recommendations as in the 2004 initial review.
Lakes Environmental needed to develop a longer-term plan for recruitment and retention of its building control staff. It was also important that it strengthens its system for assessing whether it had access to the right mix of technical skills, competencies and experience needed to do the nature and type of work it is responsible for under the Building Act 2004.
The system must ensure building consent processing and inspection work is only allocated to those who are technically competent to undertake it. It should also enable Lakes Environmental to identify skills gaps and decide on strategies to remedy these.
The recommendations made are consistent with the requirements in regulations 9 and 10 of the Building (Accreditation of Building Consent Authority) Regulations 2006. The regulations require organisations wanting to be accredited as BCAs to demonstrate they have a system for allocating work to technically competent people, and a way of assessing the competence both of their staff and of people who apply to them for employment.
Recent work undertaken after the review
Since the 2007 follow-up review, Lakes Environmental had continued its efforts to strengthen its building control operations. This has been both to implement technical review recommendations and also as part of its efforts to get accredited as a building consent authority under the Building Act 2004.
Lakes Environmental said that this preparatory work has included a number of initiatives that it considered have partially or fully implemented a number the Department's recommendations and further strengthened its building control operations. In particular, Lakes Environmental advised that:
- significant staff resources has been added since the review in November 2007. 3.5 new positions have been filled. Two are in technical processing and inspection roles, and the 1.5 position is in direct building administrative support
- it continues to engage the use of additional processing resource when it faces an increase in the number of building consent applications received
- compliance with statutory timeframes for processing timeframes of consents for the months of May and June 2008 has improved to 97.6%
- competency assessment processes have identified that Lakes Environmental has the required skill base within its staff to handle the expected volume and complexity of work
- the definition of categories of work undertaken as part of the accreditation process has helped identify the organisation's capacity needs
- continual process improvements are being undertaken and implemented throughout the organisation, including a programme of internal audit review across the range of accreditation regulations.