Kerre Woodham: Would self-certification build a better quality of workman?

I suppose I should have, but I had no idea that it takes, on average, 569 days for a home to be built and consented right now. Nearly two years for a home to be built and consented! A decent building company could throw up a house in three months, couldn't they? But no, because of the consenting process, 569 days in this country for a home to be built and consented. No wonder we have a shortage of homes and no wonder they're so expensive.

Now the Government wants to change that and yesterday announced plans to develop a new opt-in self-certification scheme for trusted building professionals and accredited businesses. The scheme, which is going to have to go through a robust consultation process, features two key pillars. The first: qualified building professionals, such as plumbers, drain layers, and builders will be able to self-certify their own work for low risk builds without the need for an inspection. This brings them in line with electricians and gas fitters who can already do this, and it's something the industry has been calling for, for years.

The second pillar, according to the Government, is that businesses with a proven track record, your Jennian Homes and your GJ Gardner’s and the like who build hundreds of near identical homes a year, will be able to go through a much more streamlined consent process. At the moment, a single-storey basic home might go through ten or more separate inspections. That's beyond double, triple, quadruple handling. It is clearly too many, says Chris Penk, and the cost benefit has become unbalanced. Penk said if we want to grow the economy, lift incomes, create jobs and build more affordable, quality homes, we need a construction sector that's firing on all cylinders.

So the next piece of the pie is constructing a new self-certification scheme for trusted building professionals and accredited businesses carrying out low risk building work. The Master Builders are welcoming the change. ACT says it's a step in the right direction, even Labour is cautiously supportive. All of them say the devil will be in the detail and let's see what the safety measures are. How's it going to work? Well, the spectre of leaky homes still haunt building regulations, still make people have an abundance of caution. How can the building industry restore confidence to the sector and prove that they are perfectly capable and able to self-certify?

It was interesting hearing the Building Surveyors Institute chap David Clifton, who was on with Mike Hosking this morning; he said electricians can self-certify, there are very rarely any problems with their work, very rarely, unlike builders, he said. So does giving an industry the ability to stand on its own two feet, does giving an industry the ability to monitor itself, build a better quality of workmen? If you know that your work's going to be checked, checked and checked again, does it make you more careless? Perhaps not intentionally. Why is it that sparkies can self-certify and do good work, whereas when you've got builders who are being checked and checked again, David Clifton said that's where you find the problems.

Is being self-determining and being able to stand on your own two feet, does it actually result in fewer mistakes because there's you and only you that is responsible for the work that's being delivered? If your work is being checked by three or four different people, where does the responsibility lie? Would self-certification actually be good for the industry? I'd be very interested to hear from you and if you have been in the process of building a new home or getting a new home built, has it been 569 days? Which just seems absolutely absurd. A good move as far as you're concerned? If you've even got grudging support from Labour, that would indicate to me that they're on the right track.

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