CONSTRUCTION
June - July 2021
Raising the bar on performance, quality and accountability in residential construction The MBIE review includes managing risks to the health and safety of the public, and the financial risks to consumers if work is done poorly
40 propertyandbuild.com
T
he overarching objectives of the current MBIE review of the Licensed Building Practitioners (LBP) scheme are to ensure first that regulation under the scheme is proportionate to the risks to public safety and wellbeing. It seeks to ensure that practitioners provide services with reasonable care and skill, operate within their areas and levels of expertise and can be held to account for substandard work and poor behaviour. “We are strengthening our occupational regulation of so that New Zealanders can remain confident in LBPs and their work,” said Amy Moorhead, MBIE’s Building Policy Manager. The LBP scheme was introduced in 2007 following an amendment to the Building Act, to help address gaps in the performance-based regulatory system that were exposed during the leaky homes crisis. It has not been reviewed as a whole since. The LBP workforce and wider building system has continued to evolve and become more specialised, and demands on builders have increased. The purpose of occupational regulation, including the LBP scheme, is to give people confidence in practitioners and their work and the regulations may not have kept up with the changes in the building sector, says MBIE . The scheme makes an important contribution to safe and durable residential buildings but does not regulate the entire building profession, just licensed builders when they are carrying out or supervising restricted building work. This only affects residential construction, and does not include commercial
