Licensed Building Practitioner requirements to change

Media release

22 January 2015

Licensed Building Practitioner Skills Maintenance requirements to change

Upcoming changes to the Licensed Building Practitioners (LBP) scheme announced today will make ongoing professional development more relevant and potentially less onerous for LBPs, whilst ensuring they remain professionally competent.

The new requirements tie in with the scheme's purpose of giving consumers confidence that the LBPs they employ meet standards and perform building work competently.

Paul Hobbs, MBIE’s Registrar of Building Practitioner Licensing says, “New Zealanders want to know their homes and buildings are properly designed and built by people who are trained to do the job.”

“By moving away from an entirely points-based system in favour of learning outcomes, LBPs can keep up with best practice whilst continuing to give consumers confidence they are qualified and accountable for the quality of their work.”

Under the new scheme, LBPs will be required to do compulsory and elective activities. The compulsory activities will involve reading the LBP News section of MBIE’s Codewordsnewsletter and identifying two examples of on-the-job learning. LBPs will also do elective activities that are relevant to their work and licence class.

The new Skills Maintenance scheme does not introduce any new activities - it simply makes two existing activities compulsory, with the aim of making the scheme more meaningful and in line with best practice across all seven licence classes.

“The Ministry will road-test the new scheme during the first half of this year, by working with LBPs, building merchants, and trade associations so that any unforeseen issues are resolved before LBPs are required to transition from November 2015” says Mr Hobbs.

“A strong and skilled building and construction sector is vital to New Zealand’s economy and prosperity. These changes will allow the sector to continue to provide the kind of quality and high standard workmanship needed to support New Zealand’s future growth.”

The Registrar administers the LBP scheme which was launched in 2007 to raise standards across the building and construction sector and consumer confidence in the quality of work carried out. Since 2012, it has been compulsory for practitioners who do restricted building work to be licensed or to work under the supervision of a licensed practitioner.

More than 24,000 LBPs have been licensed to date.

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