Council has initiated a series of informal meetings with a cross-section of the local building sector. These meetings offer Council valuable insight into the local sector and allow us to collect relevant feedback. An improvement highlighted from these meetings is being able to address technical building matters as a category within the newsletter. Each month we’ll now be including a topic based on a building component/method/practice.
As part of the ongoing engagement process with the sector Council has also implemented a Building Control Satisfaction Survey that will be sent out to applicants when the Code Compliance Certificate (CCC) is issued. Please complete the survey as the information is invaluable to the team and the added bonus is you may also win a prize!
With a significant amount of traction being made in the BWOF/Compliance Schedule area Council will now be targeting local IQP’s in its next round of sector engagement discussions. This strategy is two-fold;
1: Creating and maintaining relationships with this vital part of the sector; and
2: Enabling progress to be made in the GoShift initiative and then being able to report back to the sector on proposed changes and improvements being implemented (see GoShift media release below).
NEWS RELEASE
19 January 2016
GoShift starts building-consent revolution
Twenty one councils around central New Zealand have signed up to GoShift – a programme to standardise and simplify the building consenting process.
GoShift is a partnership between central and local government to improve performance, consistency and service delivery across the building consent system. When completed, it is expected to save between $2 and $4 million a year by reducing consent application times.
The programme is led by Wellington City Council with the support of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE).
The first obvious sign that GoShift is up and running will be the introduction over the next few months of simplified and standardised consent application forms across all 21 councils. Other parts of the consent process such as approvals and inspections will be standardised over the next six to 12 months.
MBIE General Manager Building System Performance Derek Baxter says MBIE is supporting the councils’ joint efforts because they’ve taken a solid leadership position on something they have the ability and mandate to change for the better.
“GoShift councils have committed to making it easier for their building customers to do business with them, by reducing the complexity of their processes and sharing them with other councils, he says. “Customers will have consistent building consent experiences, no matter which council they are dealing with.”
“One participating council has had, up to now, 26 different kinds of consent application forms. GoShift will reduce that to just two.”
Nelson City Council Chief Executive Clare Hadley, who chairs GoShift’s Programme Control Group, says GoShift will mean designers, builders and other operators who may work in several local authority areas will not have the hassle of interpreting a range of often-confusing and contradictory forms.
“It’s about councils sharing services to be more efficient and provide better services to their customers.”
The GoShift project is being resourced from within existing budgets in the participating councils and with in-kind contribution of expertise from MBIE, as it is considered important the change initiative does not add further cost to the system it is trying to improve.
GoShift is being developed in conjunction with Wellington City Council’s digital work management programme (DWM) which aims to put the whole building consent process online. This work is still in the design phase but when it goes live it will enable GoShift to go to the next level, offering the full range of building consent services online to participating councils that have not yet gone digital.
Building units within councils that already have a digital presence will provide valuable insights for the councils that are yet to do so. Some councils whose building consents aren’t currently digital have indicated they are watching with interest, intending to adopt a similar approach once DWM is proven.
Five Key Change Areas
The GoShift programme focusses on five key change areas:
• Standardised and aligned processes regardless of size, location or system
• One quality management system (QMS) established from best practice
• Web-site information alignment
• Standard approach to data capture for Councils’ BCA systems
• Online services and the ability to share resources across all Councils.
Participating councils:
Carterton District Council Rangitikei District Council Central Hawke’s Bay District Council Ruapehu District Council Horowhenua District Council South Taranaki District Council Hutt City Council South Wairarapa District Council Kāpiti Coast District Council Stratford District Council Manawatu District Council Tararua District Council Marlborough District Council Tasman District Council Nelson City Council Upper Hutt City Council New Plymouth District Council Whanganui District Council Palmerston North City Council Wellington City Council Porirua City Council