Simplifying the building consent process and reducing the time taken up by applications sees 21 centrally-based local bodies signing up to GoShift.
Those local authorities cover the areas from Central Hawkes Bay to New Plymouth, Manawatu and Wanganui, and down through the Wairarapa to Hutt Valley, Porirua and Wellington, and include Nelson, Marlborough, and Tasman.
GoShift is a partnership between central and local government to improve performance, consistency and service delivery across the building consent system. It is expected to save between $2 and $4 million a year by reducing consent application times.
Wellington City Council is leading the programme with the support of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE).
The first sign that GoShift is up and running will be the introduction of simplified and standardised consent application forms across all 21 councils during 2016.
Standardising the other parts of the consent process such as approvals and inspections will also be happening over the next six to 12 months.
MBIE General Manager Building System Performance Derek Baxter says GoShift councils have committed to making it easier for their building customers to do business with them, by reducing the complexity of their processes and sharing them with other authorities.
“Customers will have consistent building consent experiences, no matter which council they are dealing with,” says Baxter.
“One participating council has 26 different kinds of consent application forms. GoShift will reduce that to just two.”
Nelson City Council chief executive Clare Hadley, who chairs the programme’s control group, says designers, builders and other operators who may work in several local authority areas will not have the hassle of interpreting a range of confusing and contradictory forms thanks to GoShift.
“It’s about councils sharing services to be more efficient and provide better services to their customers,” says Hadley.
GoShift is developing in conjunction with Wellington City Council’s digital work management programme (DWM) which aims to put the whole building consent process online, offering the full range of services to participating councils that have not yet gone digital.
Building units within councils that already have a digital presence will provide valuable insights for the councils that are yet to do so. Some councils whose building consents aren’t currently digital have indicated they are watching with interest, intending to adopt a similar approach once DWM is proven.
