End councils' "sloppy monopoly" on consents

16 April 2007

Media Release

Time to end poorly performing councils' "sloppy monopoly" on resource consents

Local authorities who do not perform on time should lose their monopoly on issuing resource consents.

Poorly performing councils should be made to report to the Ministry for the Environment every six months until they process 80% of applications on time.

Parliament also needs to pass a private member's bill, now before a select committee, which requires local authorities who do not issue consents under the Building Act within the 20 day statutory timeframe, to forego resource consent fees.

The Government may need to take tougher action than gathering reports from the 'tardy twenty' worst performers only.

The latest national report, showing the country's 85 local authorities processed only 73% of consent applications within the statutory time, showed performance has slipped another 4% since the last study two years ago, the New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development says.

There is a big problem in the main centres where authorities like Manukau City are processing as few as 32.68% of applications on time. In the biggest city, Auckland, on-time performance was only 52.07%.

Yet other authorities, including those in Porirua, Manawatu, Stratford, Otorohanga, and the Hawkes Bay, Horizons and Taranaki regional councils were processing applications on time 99% to 100% of the time. Bigger cities were also performing on time 80% or better: Christchurch (87.7%), Dunedin (97.27%), Hamilton (96.86%) and Wellington (80.5%).

The Business Council's Chief Executive, Peter Neilson, says the poor performance was an impediment to development and innovation.

"People providing a monopoly service should provide an on-time service, or have the monopoly removed," Mr Neilson says.

"The Government should think about requiring local authorities who don't achieve 80% on-time performance being required to improve – or outsource the service."

The poor performers included big and small local authorities.

"Size doesn't appear to provide an excuse."

Hamilton City, with 96.86% on-time performance, already refunded application fees if it did not perform on time.

"If Hamilton and some of the other bigger authorities can perform well, then why is such poor performance tolerated within other authorities, including some of the biggest?"

Mr Neilson says the delays were happening at vast cost to business and the community and were a source of huge frustration.

"It's good that the Minister for the Environment has asked the 'tardy twenty' to report, but if there is no prompt improvement more action will be necessary."

While authorities are doing a good job in identifying and assessing environmental effects in relation to consent applications (involved in 89% of applications), it is clear proposals to advise local authorities and support accreditation training programmes for staff are not enough on their own.

A Business Council ShapeNZ online panel survey on the issues last August showed that, among the 390 respondents, 44% had waited more than 21 days for their local authority to process a building consent in the previous year.

Of these 9% had waited more than 40 days.

"It's time those with the monopoly stop being sloppy, or give it to someone who can do it right and do it on time."

The MfE list of authorities' performances is at http://www.mfe.govt.nz/publications/rma/annual-survey/2005-2006/index.html

ENDS