News Release 
Thursday 20 June 2013

Building Consent Authority accreditation for Rotorua council

ROTORUA 20.06.13:  Rotorua District Council (RDC) has received accreditation as a Building Consent Authority (BCA) for another two years.

This follows the council’s fourth successful accreditation audit carried out by independent assessors, International Accreditation New Zealand (IANZ).

Councils are required under government legislation to hold Building Consent Authority status before they can issue building consents, inspect building work and issue code compliance certificates.

Accreditation assessments are carried out every two years by IANZ on behalf of central government, assessing each council against a suite of government regulations and standards. 

RDC building services manager Darrell Holder says Rotorua District Council came through the rigorous audit with “flying colours.”

“We’re very happy with the outcome of the audit and particularly proud of our team’s performance in this area. There were only a couple of minor corrective actions requested by IANZ and we were able to quickly tidy up those issues to the assessors’ satisfaction. 

“Advice that Rotorua District Council’s BCA accreditation has been endorsed is a welcome confirmation that we have all required quality systems in place, that those systems are being appropriately maintained and that correct outcomes are being achieved. However we certainly won’t be resting on our laurels as we are committed to an on-going programme of continuous improvement,” he said.

Mr Holder said the Building Services department had already implemented more than 200 process improvements in the last few years. 

“In addition we’ve had to deal with around six separate changes to government legislation, something which has certainly provided some challenges for our workload. 

“Over the next 12 months we’ll be focussing on further enhancements to our customer services, in particular in the area of electronic processing. We’ll also be working with the local professional design sector to try and reduce the number of times we need to ask applicants for additional information to support their applications. If can make some inroads into this it will help reduce our processing timeframes for the benefit of our customers.

Mr Holder said additional Building Consent Authority accreditation requirements come into force in December this year requiring staff who undertake a technical role, to hold or be working towards certain recognised qualifications. He said the list of those qualifications had not yet been made available but the council was confident it would be in position to meet any additional qualification requirements when details became available. In the meantime IANZ had accepted trade qualifications currently held by council officers meaning any new requirements would come into effect for the next BCA audit assessment in two years’ time.

ENDS

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