Thursday 20 June, 2013

Healthy progress made on consents

Christchurch City Council staff have reduced the backlog of 500 building consents to 371 in just four working days.

Today [20 June 2013] the Council’s figures show there are 1185 current building consents being processed, with a backlog of 371 consents. The backlog is where processing has taken longer than the required 20 days. Council figures also show that since Monday 10 June the Council has granted 317 building consents with a combined building works value of $89 million.

Regulation and Democracy Services General Manager Peter Mitchell says the reduction over four working days between 15-19 June shows the Council is on track for clearing the backlog by 28 June 2013.

“A number of these consents were for residential and complex commercial projects – it is no small feat to get 129 of the backlog out the door in this short a time if you consider that each consent has about 200 components that must be reviewed under the Building Act 2004.

“We are moving at a good pace towards the finishing line particularly given that we are increasing our productive capacity for processing consents each day as we roll out our action plan.”

“This reflects the determination of staff to keep moving forward while keeping the all important focus on high quality processing. After all, at the end of the day, this is about protecting people and property.”

This week, a further five Building Consent Officers have been employed, a 13 per cent increase in their numbers at the Council. Forty-eight consents have also been sent to external Building Consent Authorities for processing.

The newly established telephone hub, which takes phone calls from customers so Building Consent Officers can concentrate on processing technical information, has also helped with productivity, says Mr Mitchell.

The recent audit report from International Accreditation New Zealand also identified a concern around the need for more competency assessments of staff. The Council has completed 131 competency assessments as part of the audit process that began in September last year with a further 12 to go.

Three staff from the Ministry of Building, Innovation and Employment have also been on site with the consents team to consider what further support or initiatives could be taken.

Mr Mitchell says he supports the initiative by the Government to help the Council manage the rebuild.

“Their involvement provides reassurance that we are taking all available opportunities to ensure consents are delivered on time.”

ends

© Scoop Media