A new report acknowledges what the Dunedin City Council has learnt the hard way - accreditation as a building consent authority is "overly bureaucratic" and has created "huge costs".
The Local Government New Zealand report, released this week, found the first phase of accreditation for local authorities across the country had created costs that overshadowed the benefits.
Accreditation of building consent authorities such as the Dunedin City Council was part of changes introduced with the Building Act 2004, which aimed to address New Zealand's leaky homes problem.
LGNZ president Kerry Prendergast said the first phase of implementing the changes was unlikely to fix systemic failures in the country's building problems.
Many councils understood the need for changes to address the leaky home issue, but were ill-equipped for the scale of the implementation and had received inadequate government support, he said.
The report was prepared by PricewaterhouseCoopers.
It follows revelations this week the city council's building control unit faced a $1.47 million budget shortfall in 2009-10, because of the economic climate and a drop-off in consent applications and revenue from fees.
The council's unit had hired seven new staff since 2007 to meet rising workloads created by the Act, but had abandoned plans to recruit five more staff in an effort to save money.
However, a report by council chief building control officer Neil McLeod warned it was not possible to reduce staffing levels further, as that could place the council's accreditation status at risk.
On Tuesday, councillors approved a 25% hike in consent fees, also to help cover the shortfall, after council chief executive Jim Harland expressed doubt further savings could be found within the unit.
The Dunedin City Council was among the councils surveyed as part of the report, but Mr McLeod said yesterday he had not yet read its findings and could not comment.
