Loafers Lodge had a current BWOF, issues just two months ago. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
Many councils are falling short in three areas over issuing the thousands of building warrants of fitness principally designed to combat fire risks.
The Wellington short-term residential lodge that burned on Tuesday had a current warrant - or BWOF - issued in March that said its 13 safety systems were good enough, including its fire alarms and evacuation pathways.
For a building like Loafers Lodge, or a backpackers, a council is meant to send someone in once a year to check that the systems signed off as OK by a commercial inspector, are in fact OK. In other words, not just take the inspector's word for it.
Wellington City Council has scored relatively well compared to other councils in the past for doing these onsite audits, though is still performing below what is recommended.
Many councils, however, fell far short in three areas, according to the latest June 2022 stock take from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. Those areas were:
- One: Lack of onsite audits - "Most [are] not reviewing enough BWOFs for their programme to be effective," it said
- Two: Lack of enforcement - "Many councils did not issue any [Notices to Fix] or infringement notices for compliance schedules or BWOF matters"
- Three: Lack of legality - "A high number" of councils had compliance schedules - setting out how what safety systems to check, and how - that do not comply with building laws
Faced with years of under-performance, the ministry intervened in 2020 to tighten its own monitoring of councils, so that the chain - the council audits, the commercial inspector, then the ministry audits the council - would be made stronger.
"There had been insufficient improvement in councils' performance," its stock take last year said - then went on to find the weaknesses listed above.
The ministry began changing its own monitoring in 2020 to make it quicker - "it had taken too long to assess all 67" councils - and to fix up the lack of properly prioritising how to manage the risks.
The BWOF said the 13 safety systems at Loafers Lodge were good enough, including its fire alarms and evacuation pathways. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
This now includes a system to "develop an overall picture of risk" and to escalate things where a council's "non-compliance appears serious".
The basic problem was councils put a lot more effort and money into consenting new buildings and renovations, than they do in checking up on those already built, the ministry said.
Its 2020-22 stock take of 32 councils found many were still taking the cheap, default option of box-ticking on paper.
Another 35 councils - including Wellington City - were still awaiting assessment.
RNZ asked WCC for the latest figures for that assessment.
The ministry recommended councils do onsite audits of between a fifth and a third of all their BWOF-able buildings each year.
Wellington City Council ran at 12 percent, or about 360 buildings a year, from 2012 to 2017. But Auckland did just three percent, and others made zero onsite checks, among them Dunedin City and Queenstown Lakes District Council.
Since 2020, Queenstown has done onsite checks at about 10 percent of buildings a year; Stratford, Hurunui and Invercargill councils were still at zero. The ministry told RNZ that councils, in general, were showing similar weaknesses since 2020, as they did before it.
The BWOF system was mandated and stronger than many countries have, but in practice has many holes, including very patchy record keeping.
Councils were increasingly getting that they needed to put more resources in, the ministry stock take said.
It wrote to those falling short and the reaction had been "positive", with most detailing how they intended to employ more staff, or rearrange priorities, and a small number actually doing just that.
But it was "time consuming" on both sides, the ministry said.
Regarding its revised way of trying to get the councils to buck up, the ministry says: "Where acceptable responses are not provided, or adequate progress is not made, we will investigate other measures to ensure compliance as well as encourage collaboration" by existing council clusters.
