However, council staff also planned to seek "clarification" from the Ministry for the Environment, after the ministry released less flattering figures earlier this week.
Council resource consents manager Alan Worthington said ministry figures - released as part of the ministry's Resource Management Act survey - showed the council processed 90% of consents during 2010-11 within the required 20 working days.
That was an improvement from 57% in 2007-08, but still placed the council behind the national average of 95%, the survey results showed.
However, Mr Worthington told the Otago Daily Times the result did not tally with his own figures for the year to June 30.
They showed the council processed 866 consents during the previous year, of which only three were not completed by the required deadline, he said.
That equated to more than 99% of consents processed within the deadline last year, placing the council above the national average, "which is where we'd like to be", Mr Worthington said.
The council's figures included notified and non-notified consents, and other applications for liquor licences, building line restrictions and subdivision consents, he said.
However, even excluding the extras - and only counting the 793 non-notified and 30 notified consents, of which three missed the deadline - did not explain the discrepancy, he said.
"These statistics, well, we need to clarify with the ministry, because something's not quite right there. The data they get is data provided from us, and what I'm seeing now doesn't match up with what's shown in their table."
The ministry staff member responsible for the survey was not available for comment late last week.
However, Mr Worthington said he was pleased to see the improvement in the council's performance, after a "historic blip" saw processing rates drop dramatically in 2007-08.
That slump had been caused by the tail-end of a property boom, coupled with staff turnover within the department and computer system upgrades, he said.
"Those three key factors came together then which caused that lower percentage, but that's not the historical norm for us," he said.
The council's average since August 2000 was 93% of consents processed within 20 working days, he said.
"Things have improved, which is great. It's where we want to be, and where we used to be."
