The Queenstown Lakes District Council says it is moving "swiftly" to fix 10 deficiencies identified by International Accreditation New Zealand during its latest audit of how the council fulfils its building consent functions.
Along with the 10 "corrective action requests" IANZ has issued four strong recommendations. The council's planning and development general manager, Tony Avery, said this afternoon that all were being actioned "immediately".
The findings and the council's response plan, identifying how the council will address the issues raised, would be discussed at an extraordinary full council meeting in Queenstown on Friday morning.
Mr Avery said he was "confident" the council would keep its accreditation as a Building Control Authority able to process and issue building consents and Code of Compliance certificates.
"Our focus is on fixing the problems so we retain our accreditation," he said.
Many of the issues identified by IANZ had already been picked up by the council before the audit was carried out, and work had started on improvements.
That work included addressing the "perfect storm" - staff vacancies, a national skill shortage and a local building boom - which meant the council was not always meeting its statutory timeframes for processing consents.
A submission had been made to this year's annual plan seeking a budget to cover the cost of six additional staff in the building control team which would help address that.
Mr Avery said IANZ had not recommended withdrawing accreditation immediately, because assessors had recognised the council was already working to fix the problems.
The corrective actions also included updating forms, checklists, systems and processes; more staff training and supervision; keeping better records of inspections and decisions; and internal audits.
Mr Avery said local builders and others applying for building consents in the district would notice a change as the council lifted the standard of documentation it would accept, as part of meeting higher standards when receiving and processing applications.
The accreditation authority also found the council's building department had, at times, accepted incomplete, incorrect or poor quality applications.
That reflected "an effort to be helpful" on the council's part, which had often resulted in delays while applicants were asked for more information to meet the requirements of the Building Act.
Mr Avery said the council would work with the building industry to improve the quality of applications submitted and this would result in faster processing times.
