Cosgrove speech to mark the official launch of the Licensed Builders Practitioners scheme

Venue: Department of Building and Housing, Wellington
Time: 11.30am, 1 November 2007

Good morning.

I would like to acknowledge the many representatives and key stakeholders here today from the building and construction industry: the Building Practitioners Board members including the chairman Alan Bickers; the Building Advisory Panel; the Chief Executive of the Department of Building and Housing Katrina Bach; Departmental staff; invited guests; ladies and gentlemen.

It is my great pleasure to join you today to mark the official launch of the Licensed Building Practitioners (LBP) Scheme.

This is one of the defining moments in the Labour-led government’s reform of the building sector and one that would not have been possible without the dedication of the building industry and officials from local and central government.

While the government put in place the mechanism for the scheme, you are the people who gave it its design and content.

The scheme breaks new ground, by making it possible for people working in the building industry to have their skills, knowledge and experience formally recognised, in many cases for the first time. In order to be licensed, applicants will have to demonstrate they have those credentials, and that they are competent to do the job.

Occupational licensing is for people who take pride in their work; for people who want to take responsibility, not just for the quality of their own work, but also for the work of the people they supervise.

They are the people whose skills will help ensure that homes and buildings are designed and built right the first time and therefore meet the ongoing needs of the people who live and work in them.

The scheme will also help restore consumer confidence in the quality of our homes and buildings, and help restore a world-class building sector in this country.

There will be a public online register of licensed practitioners so the public know they are hiring a competent professional. Cowboy builders who have left us with problems such as leaky buildings will have no place in this new environment.

For the first time consumers will have an independent investigative body to complain to should an LBP do work they feel is deficient.

In short, licensing means increased accountability. The Building Practitioners Board will have the power to investigate complaints and can take action against an LBP, including making the practitioner undergo more training, imposing a fine or cancelling the licence. The online register will also include details of any disciplinary action taken against an LBP.

Once licensed, a building practitioner will be able to command the respect not just of their fellow professionals but also the public. They will be able to display the logo on all their advertising and marketing material, and be able to use this mark of quality to promote themselves in the marketplace.”

And rightly so, because these licensed building practitioners will be leaders in the building industry, and I fully expect that the important contribution they make will be recognised and rewarded.

This will increasingly be the case because the demand for licensed building practitioners will only grow as the restricted aspects of the scheme come into force.

From November 2010, a licensed building practitioner will be required to carry out or supervise specific restricted work on homes and buildings. Restricted work will be defined in the coming months in consultation with industry.

But from today, the LBP scheme is now live. People can now apply for the first seven of the 13 licenses being introduced. These licenses apply to designers, builders, site supervisors, construction managers and carpenters.

There are three licenses for designers, depending on the complexity of buildings being worked on. Registered architects and chartered professional engineers automatically hold a Class 3 design licence and can therefore design all three building categories. Likewise, the three licenses for site leads relate to the complexity of the building work. And the seventh licence is for carpentry.

Another six classes of licence are planned for introduction before the end of next year when the opportunity to become licensed is extended to external plasterers, roofers, bricklayers and blocklayers, and specialists in concrete structure, steel structure and building services.

Working groups are expected to meet next February and we would like to see the “competencies” for these six new licence classes added to the Licensed Building Practitioner Scheme Rules by July 2008.

I am not going to predict how many licensed building practitioners we will end up with. But there has been considerable interest already, as evidenced by several hundred requests for application packs, even before their availability had been publicly announced.

I do not find this at all surprising because the building industry has been strongly backing reforms that will see standards improved – and it is not just property owners who will benefit.

DIY

A question often put to me is where does the Do-It-Yourself home handy-man or woman fit within this new building environment? I want to assure everyone that the Kiwi Do-It-Yourself (DIY) tradition will be protected under the licensing scheme. People will still be able to do DIY work including building a standard, straight-forward house from scratch or adding on a room, subject to the normal Building Code requirements and building inspections.

However I think it is important that future homebuyers are given the means to make an informed choice. The government is looking at options to ensure future house buyers know if a house was built by a Licensed Building Practitioner or a DIY'er. The buyer can then chose whether to get all the necessary pre-purchase inspections and due diligence, or buy the other house down the road built by an LBP, with all the protections and accountability that comes with that.

DIY construction accounts for a very small percentage of the multi-billion dollar construction sector, and the builders I have spoken to do not have the time or inclination to supervise DIY builders. It would also be a licence to print money. However the government is keen to hear the industry's views on the DIY issue, so the right balance is struck before licensing becomes mandatory for restricted work in a few years time.

Other reforms

The Building Practitioners Licensing Scheme is but one of a series of government initiatives aimed at improving the quality of New Zealand’s homes and buildings.

As Minister for Building and Construction I have been overseeing the reforms of the Building Act 2004, which seek to ensure that our buildings are designed, inspected and built right first time.

In addition to licensing of building practitioners, these reforms include:

•the accreditation and registration of local authorities as building consent authorities, to strengthen building control at the critical consent processing and inspection stages
•a top-to-bottom review of our Building Code – the document that sets out performance requirements in our buildings.

The government is also proposing changes to the Residential Tenancies Act aimed at encouraging the a stable rental market of quality housing, while proposed changes to the Unit Titles Act would recognise that people are increasingly living in apartment style accommodation and need legislation that needs their modern needs.

Building Consent Authority accreditation

The Building Consent Authority accreditation scheme will ensure that local authorities have the systems and procedures in place to carry out their responsibilities in the building process as efficiently as possible.

Councils are showing strong commitment to the process. The end result of accreditation will be better quality building consents, faster processing and quicker identification of poor quality consent applications.

Councils will benefit from greater efficiency in their building control operations, increased capability and risk management, while customers will enjoy better service and more consistent application of the Building Code.

Building Code review

The Building Code defines the overall performance standards that buildings must meet, yet there also has to be the flexibility to allow for innovation. Sustainability is very much at the heart of what we are seeking to achieve and one of the proposals in the second Building Code review discussion document takes a close look at the “embodied energy” in buildings.
By embodied energy, it means the energy we use to create the building – the materials that go into it, and the energy used to put the actual building in place – the total amount of energy used to produce a final product from raw materials.
The second review discussion document raises the idea of factoring into the design the greenhouse gas impact of producing the building’s components, as well as the building’s lifetime operating energy use.

This is big picture stuff, and no decisions will be made over whether we should go down this path until all the necessary in-depth analysis has been done. Housing affordability, for example, is a key consideration, because it is no use having houses that Kiwis can't afford to buy.

The government is conscious of the world-wide research underway into the environment impact of buildings, and New Zealand needs to be exploring these issues in-depth to ensure it is on the best possible path. Creating more energy efficient houses and commercial buildings is a triple win for New Zealanders’ health, our environment and our power bills.

Some reforms to the Building Code have been introduced ahead of the full review. Yesterday (31 October 2007) the most significant improvements to the energy efficiency of new homes in 30 years came into effect, meaning warmer, dryer and healthier homes.

As well as increasing ceiling and wall insulation minimum requirements for all new homes and major extensions to existing houses, the new energy efficiency measures will mean most new homes are double glazed.

The tougher insulation requirements currently apply to all new homes in the South Island and the North Island Central Plateau. The rest of the country follows next year.

New houses and major extensions will be 30 percent more energy efficient, and the money saved on energy will have paid for the cost of this investment within three to seven years, depending on where you live in the country. The payback to our wallets is obviously quicker in colder climates. And the payback in terms of improving New Zealanders’ health is also clear, with studies showing that people have better respiratory health with fewer days off work and school if they live in a warm, dry home.

Conclusion

The reforms will increase the confidence New Zealanders have in the building sector and the quality of our homes and buildings. The launch of the Building Practitioners Licensing Scheme is a key step towards achieving this goal.

New Zealanders want to know their homes and buildings are properly designed and built by people who are competent to do the job. Knowing that the LBP doing their work is having the confidence of hiring a recognised professional.

In time this - along with the government's other reforms - will translate into an overall raising of quality standards and development of a world-class building and construction sector.

I congratulate you all for helping us to this point.