13 APRIL 2007.

Council Gaining Ground on Consents

The Ministry of the Environment has released its latest national survey of resource management practice by local authorities. The survey covers consent processing by councils and other authorities during the financial year 1 July 2005 to 30 June 2006.

As well as providing a snapshot of Resource Management Act practices, the survey offers benchmarks for good practice and illustrates where improvements can be made.

Comparisons are made across councils.

Key findings include a national drop in the number of consent applications, the number of applications publicly notified, and consents processed within statutory time limits (73 %), compared to the 2003/04 survey.

Rodney District Council followed these trends. The number of consents in the district was down by 119, the number of notified applications dropped from 5.36 % to 4.45 % and the number of applications processed within statutory timeframes dropped to 59.4% .

Lloyd Barton, Manager Resource Management, says that during the survey period Rodney, like a number of councils, struggled to find qualified staff to deal with the added complexities of the Resource Management Act.

"We have since been successful in recruiting experienced staff from overseas. This combined with reviewing our processes and reshaping our teams to make the best use of the resources we have has led to an improvement in processing times," he says.

Council figures show that in March of this year 90% of non notified applications were completed in time and 100 % of notified applications.

"The feedback from our customers has played a key part in turning the figures around," Mr Barton says.

ENDS

© Scoop Media