Consent evaluation report: Part three

The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) has released its evaluation of the building consent system report. This is the third of four articles that explores its findings

The report was commissioned to understand how well the current consent system is aligned with its objectives and to explore the underlying causes of issues such as efficiency and effectiveness. 

Under Construction has reported widely on the consenting process, with builders highlighting issues across the country. 

However, MBIE refuted those claims in the executive summary of its report. 

“The system faces frequent criticism for being inefficient and unpredictable, adding additional costs and delays to building projects,” it stated. “However, there has been little robust evidence to support these claims and a lack of nationally consistent data about the consenting process.”

The report gathered evidence between March and July 2021. It carried out interviews, focus groups, surveys, building site visits, reviewed existing research and analysed the current consents process. MBIE received 291 survey responses, carried out 59 interviews, held five focus groups attended by 41 industry professionals, and visited sites in eight regions across New Zealand. 

This is the third of four articles that will explore problems in the building consent system, as discussed in the report.

Workforce issues remain a problem

Significant and sustained demand has resulted in challenges for the industry in meeting its resourcing needs. The number of dwellings consented has risen more than 200% between June 2010 and June 2021. However, MBIE figures say that the number of people employed in the sector has increased by only 50% over the same period.

“Nearly all the participants in our fieldwork identified capacity constraints across the sector as a major issue. Developers talked about significant challenges finding capable and experienced sector professionals, as most are already booked out for quite some time. Many professionals confirmed that they were juggling multiple projects and sometimes taking on more work than they can effectively handle.”

Building Consent Authorities (BCAs) also said capacity was a problem. The increase in consents has resulted in BCAs struggling to meet statutory timeframes for processing consent applications.

The report noted that recruitment and training isn’t a silver bullet because of the time required to get a recruit up to speed.

“We can pull someone off the street, but we still have to train them on regulations – this is a two-year programme that is going to take them out of the office for at least 50% of the time,” said one Building Consent Officer (BCO).

This has led to ‘poaching’ of BCOs by BCAs, particularly those in urban areas – which adds to the staff pressure at smaller, rural BCAs.

Fewer designers = more RFIs

Pressure is being placed on BCAs and BCOs by the lack of designers, which has resulted in many submitting poor quality or incomplete work instead of taking longer to complete a job at the risk of missing a deadline with a client.

One BCO said: “We understand there are time constraints laid out from the clients. But [designers] need to understand that if they don’t give us a compliant application, they’re going to get Requests for Information (RFIs) and instead of saving time  […] they’re actually losing it.”

Booking inspections issue

One of the consequences of short staffing at BCAs is the long wait time for inspections, which has led to several issues. Firstly, builders need to book inspections weeks in advance but run the risk of not completing the work in time. Secondly, builders are bulk booking inspections then cancelling those they don’t need, which places a strain on the system.

The first issue highlighted is explained in more detail by this BCO.

“We do fail a number of inspections but not all of them are true fails. It could be that when we go to inspect the foundations, the consent includes three slabs, and only one is complete, so the inspection would fail. So, when the stats come out that [the BCA] fails a certain percentage, maybe 50%-60% of inspections, it’s not a true representation of the pass/fail rate.”

Furthermore, the report found that the industry’s increased specialisation is creating a less efficient sector due to “a lack of end-to-end expert oversight and greater risk of error between construction stages”. The report added that another big issue arises from supervisors working across multiple sites, which means they are not always available when BCOs conduct inspections. 

System-wide concerns

Another constraint on BCOs’ time is the challenge of balancing their consent function with accreditation requirements.

Buildings are more challenging to build and regulate – and, as explored earlier in this article, there’s more to regulate than ever before.

However, concerns exist that BCOs do not have the expertise to assess technical details in all aspects of design and building work.

There is also a concern that the sector can’t keep up with the change of pace in building standards.

“A number of interviewees from both sides raised issues around inexperienced architects, engineers, builders and project managers undertaking work above their skill level and experience,” said the report.

Additionally, delays were caused by people unfamiliar with legislation. 82% of BCA respondents said sector professionals lacked the skills to understand the Building Code. Delays were also caused by people, who are unfamiliar with consenting processes, submitting incomplete documentation.

One builder respondent agreed some tradies might not be up to date with the latest law changes, but said it was due to poor communication from regulators.

All of these factors are contributing to poor system performance in regards to consents.

Poor performance not stamped out

BCOs expressed frustration that poor performers clogged up the consent system via repeated failed inspections. Site supervisors being spread thinly across multiple jobs was offered as a reason for a lack of oversight on builds.

Hourly fees for application reviews were also seen as a disincentive to increase the quality of the work, as builders often passed these costs onto clients.

The report added: “There are concerns from both BCAs and the sector that people are not always carrying out their roles and responsibilities in a way that encourages efficiency, predictability and effectiveness in the system.”

Many applications missed critical information, said the report, while BCOs felt pressured to accept incomplete or poor-quality applications, while using RFIs further down the line.

“We get the blame for the delays, but we are purely reactionary. We only react to what was provided to us and what’s on site for us to look at. We are just doing our jobs to ensure buildings are safe, healthy and durable,” said one BCO.

Low trust hampers progress

The report stated that a vicious cycle between designers, builders and BCAs was developing.

“Sector professionals generally felt that BCAs would be overly cautious when carrying out their consenting function, finding faults regardless of the quality of work the sector produces. This assumption may then be discouraging the sector from carrying out their own quality assurance.”

Low trust between BCAs and the sector is causing a breakdown in relationships. Many tradies complain that BCOs double-checked work signed off by specialists, causing delays.

Risk-averse behaviour from BCAs is leading to inefficiencies in the consent process – say sector professionals.

An architect added: “BCAs are overly risk-averse … and [this] results in excessive delay in processing and excessive number of irrelevant RFIs because BCA staff are unwilling or unauthorised to process consents decisively and confidently.”

However, BCAs argue that being risk-averse is a critical part of the job.

Process-related complaints

There were also several process-related complaints, such as:

• The statutory 20-day processing timeframe causing confusion or uncertainty.
• Variability in IT systems across BCAs, contributing to administrative inefficiencies.
• The volume of documentation included in consent applications increasing.
• Alternatives to Acceptable Solutions considered too difficult to implement.