Self-certification is putting the cart before the horse

More continuous professional development and greatly improved education in the construction sector are required before a self-certification scheme can be trusted to solve our country’s homebuilding woes.

So says Institute of Building Surveyors president David Clifton, who is wary of the Government’s proposed changes to allowing trusted building professionals and accredited businesses to carry out low-risk building work.

He told Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking that self-certification is something that can be worked towards, but the sector’s education processes need to be up to scratch first.

“There is huge value in refining the consenting process to address time and cost concerns.

“In fact, there are examples where the time and costs of the consent processing outweigh the cost of the actual work.

“But these are at the fringes of the process, and so these proposed changes must strike the right balance between oversimplifying the process and protecting homeowners, businesses, and councils.”

The sector already wrestles with an alarmingly high rate of failed inspections, so removing a Building Consent Authority’s process of consenting could risk further failures.

Clifton says the priority should be improving the professional development and education of builders and consultants before culminating in self-certification.

“We believe that Licensed Building Practitioners (LBPs) need further training to be adequately prepared for any proposed change for self-certification.

“The market must have confidence the sector can deliver with minimal defects from design, to build and completion. This can only be achieved with the process of further education for the sector, and confirmation of this working via independent inspections.”

Another concern is the reliance on the licensing bodies’ guarantees, as an insurance policy, is not correct or workable. They are schemes to protect their members and have little effective consumer protection.

This raises the question of whether the Government intends to provide indemnification schemes for LBPs to enable this process of self-certification to be implemented.

“Our sources indicate that professional indemnity insurance is not currently widely accessible, other than for large-scale design and build contracts,” Clifton says.

“It might be considered there are alternatives via licensing bodies, such as Master Builders. But, with the sheer cost of a scheme, we feel they would not be able to support a full professional indemnity policy, like Registered Building Surveyors hold, for each building company.