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Under a new scheme, some builders will be able to skip council inspections and certify their own work, raising concerns about quality control.

The building permit regime is set to be streamlined by the government, with self-certifications replacing some council inspections.

It means councils will be partly removed from the building approval process, allowing qualified tradespeople – including plumbers and builders – to waive inspections for low-risk builds.

Self-certifications will be open to those with a proven track record, such as companies building dozens of nearly identical homes.

Some builders applaud the government for their “common sense approach”, but others wonder if it is similar to young students marking their homework.

detail spoke to NZ Institute of Building Surveyors president David Clifton about the proposed new scheme, including risks, fears and safeguards.

“The devil is in the details and oversimplification can be the problem,” he says.

“We have a lot of good builders out there and some not so good, and we still have a problem of high failure rate inspections.”

He says the new proposal focuses on simple and small-scale buildings.

“There’s not a lot of detail on that. What is a simple building? That definitely needs to be removed. I think the criteria for that needs to be carefully considered.

“I think it really needs to be established by management who decides that something is a simple building, so is it the council that says it’s a simple building because it’s been submitted to the council, or is it an architect who can decide?”

So how do owners protect themselves from “cowboys” who may choose to sign their own work?

“This scheme is for the upper echelon of group builders and builders who build state-of-the-art buildings – and those with a very good track record.

“Having said that, cleaning up the bad apples is difficult; we’ll never get them all out, but we need to be better at overall construction rather than focusing on the bad apples as the main problem. The general construction cannot continue the current failure. rates – at the moment we fail 37 per cent in the final inspection and because there are not enough qualified builders”.

He says education is key.

The government says it’s not about lowering standards, “it’s about putting system requirements and resources where they’re most needed…rather than having that regulation for regulation’s sake”.

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