Formed in mid-2006 as a way of collaborating between individual Councils to combine ideas and resources to form a regional approach towards regulatory processes under the Building Act 2004.

Background

The persons who originally met together to get this off the ground signed up to a Memorandum of Understanding, and were generally the Building Control managers from each of the 11 Councils from Timaru to Invercargill, with the exception of Gore who opted not to join up initially.

The Southern Building Controls Group (SBCG) set about working on two major projects;

• To jointly develop the processes, procedures and quality management system required to meet the standard for a Building Consent Authority (BCA).

• To meet the Accreditation Regulations and register as Building Consent Authorities.

This was a very interesting time as the Building (Accreditation of Building Consent Authorities) Regulations 2006 were a new and unknown beast, as were the methods to try and achieve compliance. Each of the 11 BCAs did manage to achieve the initial accreditation milestone, however some major issues were exposed by International Accreditation NZ (IANZ) in various areas, especially relating to record keeping, reasons for decisions and “doing what the manual says we do”.

Progress

Since the initial projects had been largely achieved and the IANZ accreditation assessments indicate areas to improve on every two years, the SBCG has moved into other areas of regional alignment and adopting of common best practice procedures. These include;

• Getting together for workshops to develop a standard building consent application form (Form 2) across the SBCG cluster region. The object was to develop a concise and compact Form 2 that met all the requirements of the forms regulations and the accreditation regulations. This has now been in place for several years and has been reviewed and refined after each IANZ assessment.

• A resource sharing agreement was established and signed by all BCAs in the cluster group in 2013. This was to recognise the extremes of our workloads and a means to manage the peaks and troughs and enable staff from other BCAs to assist if available to help with processing and site inspections.

• Setting up a SBCG website, initially hosted by Queenstown Lakes District Council as a means of having a one stop location for common forms, templates and guidance documents that we all use. The hosting portal is being revised at present and is likely to be accessed via a link from the Invercargill City Council  (ICC) website in the near future.

• Setting up a Producer Statement Authors (PSA) register generally for BCA use when making a decision to accept or decline a producer statement from the tradespersons that we deal with for the likes of waterproof membranes, glass balustrade systems, plaster coating systems, intumescent coatings, etc. This was initially hosted on the SBCG website however issues with getting it updated has prompted ICC to take over the administration and day to day operation of the register. Operational fees were introduced to help offset the running costs in late 2017.

• Getting runs on the board with central government via the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) and also through our national body, Building Officials Institute of NZ (BOINZ). Representatives from each of these organisations have attended meetings frequently and hold the SBCG in high esteem when raising proposed ideas or potential changes to legislation in the infancy stages.

• Several localised training courses have been arranged by SBCG members to assist with the upskilling and enhancement of the current competency levels of BCA staff. These have been brought to the regions where the training need is to assist each BCA with reduced travel expenses for staff to attend.

Next steps

• Review and enhance the current suite of standard SBCG forms and seek further agreement on items such as vetting/processing check sheets, standard letter templates, regional newsletters and public information.
• Collaborate and share procedures for the implementation and delivery of the Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Act 2016 legislation. Sharing of staff resources could also be possible via the SBCG Resource Sharing agreement.
• Share research and analysis information (where possible) when considering new IT systems, electronic consent lodgement/processing portals and electronic tools as they develop.
• Continue to meet 4 – 5 times a year and thrash out the burning issues that we all encounter in our own areas, these are sometimes unique situations but can also be in some ways similar to what another BCA have faced before. This meeting time is especially helpful to those members who may be new to the management role and this platform provides a reassuring group of professionals to network with.

Russell Paterson

Chairman SBCG