Building Professionals Amendment Bill 2008 latest step to end Council building control
The lunatics have taken over the asylum
It's hard to know where to start in responding to the exposure draft Building Professionals Amendment Bill 2008.
The BPB getting its money-hungry and megalomaniacal hands on local government building control is the latest step by a Government already grubby from developer donations and which has had a plan to totally remove building control from local government since 1995.
Prior to the electronic age, depa (under its previous name of the Environmental Health and Building Surveyors Association) used to publish a tabloid newspaper. In July 1996, habsaNews carried a front-page headline "Knowles’ plan to end Council building control". This was our response to the Minister's proposals to introduce, under the guise of competition, a private certification option where developers could buy their own certifier. We saw it as the first step in a process by those who would put at risk quality building, construction and amenity in return for easy and profitable development.
Developers loved it and one of the main reasons they loved it was the erosion of standards of building construction - an erosion so rapid that it surprised even those who had given private certification 10 years before it imploded. Under pressure from Independents in the Upper House, in 2004 the Government established the Joint Select Committee on the Quality of Buildings - because the Government thought they would be better able to control this than an Upper House Committee dominated by the Greens and Democrats.
Otherwise known as the Campbell Inquiry, amongst other things it concluded that there needed to be a "level playing field" between private certifiers and those doing certifying (amongst other things) for councils and Council staff should be accredited in the same way that private certifiers were.
The fantasy of a level playing field (back)
Sorry if you've heard this before, but this is an assertion made only by people who don't know how local government works, or are simply hostile or antagonistic. Private certifiers usually operate without supervision and even in those companies where a number of private certifiers work, there is nothing like the thoroughness of supervision and control that exists in every councils’ development control process.
The reality is that Council staff are supervised, managed, provided with work based on their skills and experience; and trained and disciplined if they don't do the job right. Team leaders, managers, a director, a general manager in charge of the lot and the oversight of community-elected councillors make a mockery of the flimsy or non-existent supervision that exists in the private sector. There can never be a level playing field because the private sector won’t introduce the checks and balances, supervision and control of local government.
But still, the level playing field gets dragged out every time the Government considers the regulation of building.
Government proposes accreditation of Council “certifiers” in 2004 (back)
In another sham public consultation, the Director of the Building Professionals Branch of DIPNR at the time made it clear that the BPB wanted to accredit Council staff to bankroll the operations of the Board. This would have had a dramatic financial effect on councils.
In a covering letter with our submission to the July 2004 discussion paper we summarised our opposition to accreditation of council staff this way:
- There is sufficient supervision and control ready.
- No one needs parallel accountability.
- The costs are prohibitive.
- It would distract the BPB from the real job.
- A central point of complaint is contrary to a council’s role in managing their staff.
We also didn't like:
- The fantasy that there can ever be a "level playing field",
- The idea that "certification" began as a process in 1998. Councils had been doing it for almost 100 years, and
- The expression "Council certifier". No one but DIPNR and the private certifier lobby use this expression. It is foreign to councils and does not describe anyone's job.
Clearly nothing has changed.
And now they do it again in 2008 (back)
In our 2004 submission we recommended that councils be accredited by the BPB. That would allow the BPB to investigate and expect reasonable responses from councils if complaints had been made about the building control process or the performance of individual staff.
This also avoids the fundamental problem of parallel accountability - we're a council employee is accountable to their employer to do the job properly and at the same time accountable to the Building Professionals Board. How will that work?
We don't know how the BPB imagines that the parallel accountability will operate if a problem arises about the adequacy of the job done by a council employee. They’re not entirely clear about it either and if you have some spare time you can phone the number the Department of Planning provides for enquiries on this proposal and ask them. It's 1300 305 695.
I rang the number, was referred to three different people until I found a policy person in the BPB (one of those famous names always blamed for the impractical proposals that come out of the place), the phone dropped out once and I received a call back but even then a request that put my questions in writing.
All I wanted to know was how the parallel accountability would work, what would accreditation cost and how do councils apply for exemption?
What does the 2008 Exposure Draft Bill do? (back)
It proposes establishing an accreditation regime for all Council staff who are involved in certifying - an expression we still struggle to deal with as its alien local government. Still, the history of "reform" by this developer-funded Government has never been sympathetic to local government.
The criteria for accreditation is not the problem - three levels of "Council accreditation" proposed that parallel the accreditation level for private certifiers – CA1 at the top, CA2 and CA3.
There will be a cost and training imposition on councils which we know already cash-strapped. Of the 153 councils in NSW, more than 40 already on "finance watch" by the Department of Local Government. That means they are on the level of bankruptcy already and Councils generally will struggle to accommodate the accreditation costs (not yet established) and the training needs.
But it is the parallel accountability that is the problem. No one would object to the BPB being able to investigate a council for the manner in which a job has been done because that process would involve the BPB acknowledging that it is a council’s responsibility to make judgements about who should be allocated particular work. The involvement of the BPB challenges the authority of councils to regulate their own employees.
This proposal must be opposed. Who do these people think they are?
The Bill also proposes that the BPB be able to take disciplinary action against accredited certifiers working at councils that can involve significant fines. And with reduced appeal rights from the current access to the ADT. This proposal also must be opposed.
The BPB will never be able to investigate and act upon failures by council staff in the building control process as speedily or as fairly as councils. A significant complaint against poor performance can be investigated, heard and a decision made, allowing representation of the employee concerned, within four to six weeks. This would be impossible for the BPB, creating a situation where a council may have dealt with an employee in a proper manner when many, many months later the BPB crashes in its cumbersome and usurious way to start all over again. What a stupid waste of government resources.
All councils, and affected staff, should complaint about this NOW. Councils must retain the right to allocate work and deal with problems in the way the work is done. The BPB’s role should be restricted to acknowledging it is the council's responsibility and any enquiry or investigation should be conducted through the Council. It is the council's responsibility not the individual employee’s.
We are sceptical about whether anyone in the Department of Planning pays any attention to what councils say, but just for the record (and so we can all say later "we told you so") you only have until Thursday 24 April to tell them you think the idea is ludicrous.
And there is an exposure draft Environmental Planning and Assessment Amendment Bill 2008 too! (back)
The views expressed in our submission in response to the Department of Planning Discussion Paper "Improving (sic) the NSW planning system" remain unchanged. We'll just reproduce this wonderful comment on the Government's initiatives by Moir.
We make Hornsby rethink its obsession about random drug and alcohol testing (back)
The March Bulletin carried a report about initiatives by the anti-drug zealots at Hornsby Shire Council to introduce random drug and alcohol testing. depa filed a dispute about this unnecessary and invasive practice in the Industrial Relation Commission to try and stop it.
Masquerading behind the guise of a concern for health and safety, the Council's proposals were nothing of the sort. Slow to act, no evidence to warrant such invasive practices and four years of getting nowhere, depa (supported in the Commission by the USU, the LGEA and UnionsNSW) offered the Council our support to introduce a system like that that operates at the RTA - and with the assistance of the other unions, a system that could be in operation within three months.
Well, to cut a very long story short, Hornsby has decided to reject the assistance of the unions to have something implemented within three months, proceed at its usual pace to implement their own system and review the question of whether they really want random drug and alcohol testing in 12 months.
The introduction of an agreed system and the review of the random testing issue had been proposed by the unions at the beginning of the dispute and rejected.
If the test of good negotiation is an ability to get people to do what you want, and to have them think it's their own idea, then Hornsby's idea to do this must be applauded.
We know that there are a couple of other councils contemplating random testing and we know that Upper Hunter has introduced the system already. We will need to discourage those that are contemplating it and have those that have introduced it, rethink it.
The LGSA HR Conference in May will hear from a panel (including depa) about whether this is a good idea or not. Our role now will be to convince all these HR managers that random testing is not the solution to occupational health and safety risks. Safety initiatives need to be incident-driven and safety-critical.
(What is the collective noun for HR managers anyway? A muddle? A vacuum? An abyss? A void? - suggestions to ian@depa.net.au)
Lithgow triumphs at depa Golf Day (back)
Since the introduction of the depa Golf Day in 2004 Blacktown, North Sydney, Penrith and Bankstown have all been worthy winners. Almost one hundred members played for the depa Cup on metropolitan councils Union Picnic Day on 14 March.
But there was no touching the brilliance of the Lithgow team which won not only the Cup but team member Gary Wallace won the longest drive by about 70 metres. We congratulate the Lithgow team - Paul Anderson, Mark Dicker, Andrew Muir and Gary and look forward to presenting them with a depa Cup at a suitable ceremony.
Past winners of the Cup and others interested in building a more competitive team can send appropriate employment offers to Gary at Lithgow.
As General Manager of Lithgow Council, Paul Anderson may have some interesting KPIs in his employment contract, but the retention of Gary should be the most important one.
Ian Robertson
Secretary
