Two years ago, an IANZ audit showed the team was struggling to keep up with customer expectations and meet its statutory obligations, but outgoing council chief executive Michael Ross said last week that based on the exit interview after the audit team visited, last month's result showed ``what we've been doing over the last 18 months is lifting our game right across the board.''
``Council had the confidence in us to invest additional money to make it possible for us to recruit some additional resource into that area - some additional people - and that's made all the difference,'' he said.
``If we had not done that and had not put in place the processes to satisfy what was likely to come out in the audit, we may not have been in the position we are in now.''
A building control officer had taken on a senior role and the vacancy that move created was the only remaining one on the building team that had shored up its numbers recently, he said.
In October last year, the Otago Daily Times reported 130 members of the Waitaki building community met councillors and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment officials to address their frustrations as the council implemented changes stemming from its previous building consents audit by IANZ.
A spokesman for the group declined to comment at the time and did not reply to a request for comment last week.
IANZ chief executive Lou Richards said the agency could not comment on individual reports.
Mr Ross said the council had not yet received the IANZ report but the indication from the exit interview was ``absolutely'' good news for the council.
IANZ made six strong recommendations, primarily around procedures, linking and implementing some current procedures, he said.
This week, council regulatory services manager Lichelle Guyan could not confirm how many fulltime-equivalent positions there were in the building team.
However, she said the ``entire regulatory unit'' had increased from 8.5 fulltime-equivalent positions to 14 fulltime-equivalent positions.
The council was ``in the process of advertising three roles for the building team''.
The council's last two annual plans, 2016-17 and 2017-18, included an increase of spending of $611,000 on regulatory services, with the majority of it spent on the building team, but the council could not specify how much was spent on the building team alone, a spokeswoman said.
