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Malcolm Fleming: NZ Certified Builders CEO on the Government's push for remote building inspections · The SME Stream

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  Speaker 1: Jack Team, and as part of its housing push, the
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  Speaker 1: government has announced plans to make councils do building inspections remotely.
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  Speaker 1: Minister for Building and Construction Chris Pinks is the building
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  Speaker 1: process takes way too long and this will make things
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  Speaker 1: easier and cheaper. Some councils already use remote inspections, but
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  Speaker 1: uptake at the moment is low and practice is vary.
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  Speaker 1: Malcolm Fleming is the CEO of New Zealand Certified Builders
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  Speaker 1: and is with us this evening.
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  Speaker 2: Good a Malcolm good evening, Jack.
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  Speaker 1: So talk to us a little bit about how a
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  Speaker 1: remote inspection actually works.
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  Speaker 2: So remote inspection works like this, so a builder is
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  Speaker 2: ready for their inspection and it could work just as
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  Speaker 2: well in a very remote location and we've been trying
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  Speaker 2: the McKenzie country, or could be work in a very
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  Speaker 2: traffic congested place like Auckland. And so it would work
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  Speaker 2: like this that the builder would have a video, have
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  Speaker 2: the camera and be directed by a building a council
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  Speaker 2: inspector back at their base and asking to show particular
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  Speaker 2: parts of the builder that they wanted to check.
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  Speaker 1: Right, okay, So and when you say a camera, is
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  Speaker 1: it just their.
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  Speaker 2: Phone the phone? Yes, the phone would do.
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  Speaker 1: Right, So you basically just do like a zoom call
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  Speaker 1: or a FaceTime call, just a video call between the
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  Speaker 1: inspector back and the office, the builder and the building.
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  Speaker 1: And how many things would they be inspecting during one
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  Speaker 1: of these digital inspections.
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  Speaker 2: What depends on what the building inspection was for. Some
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  Speaker 2: of those building inspections are for specific items, for example,
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  Speaker 2: some structural steel that's been put in place, some tanking
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  Speaker 2: that's gone on going on underneath, some tiling, some specifics
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  Speaker 2: like that. Or it could be for a pre line
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  Speaker 2: inspection which is quite a significant miles, or a final
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  Speaker 2: inspection had been to the project. Reason.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, right, So say like for a typical house, what
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  Speaker 1: would be the inspection that at the moment takes the
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  Speaker 1: longest period of time.
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  Speaker 2: That would likely be pre line inspection. My sort of
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  Speaker 2: view of NJEDCB that remote inspections wouldn't be for those
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  Speaker 2: big milestone inspections. It would work very well in tandem
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  Speaker 2: with some other tools that are available for some smaller
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  Speaker 2: aspects which can be quite time consuming, and builders are
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  Speaker 2: often waiting on site for building inspectors to be able
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  Speaker 2: to arrive on site, and so the whole projects at
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  Speaker 2: a standstill.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, that kind of makes sense. So what when you
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  Speaker 1: say there'd be small projects, what kind of inspections do
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  Speaker 1: you mean?
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  Speaker 2: Well, sort of talking about so if you worked in
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  Speaker 2: tandem with other things like say producer statements for example,
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  Speaker 2: which ENGEDCBS quite keen on. So what I'm talking about there.
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  Speaker 2: So if we look at the tanking example previously, if
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  Speaker 2: you allowed the applicator provider producer statement, who reflect that
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  Speaker 2: it's been applied in accordance with the manufacturer's requirements, that
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  Speaker 2: creates a level of certainty. It's a paper trail and
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  Speaker 2: then all what we required then rather than a physical inspection,
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  Speaker 2: a video inspection, the remote inspection would be the tick
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  Speaker 2: box required to give the confidence to the building consent authority.
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  Speaker 1: That just seems incredibly sensible to me. What is the downside?
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  Speaker 1: You know there must be some downsides to not having
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  Speaker 1: inspectors there in person.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I've seen some of the commentary around and I
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  Speaker 2: think it's accurate that there could be mis representation by
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  Speaker 2: some builders in terms of the control on the camera
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  Speaker 2: where it goes our view NDCB that this should only
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  Speaker 2: be available to LBP builders and also LBP builders who
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  Speaker 2: have got a proven track record with the Council.
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  Speaker 1: Right, Okay, so councils that already have so builders that
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  Speaker 1: already have a relationship with council but have also been
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  Speaker 1: shown to produce high quality building that meet standards over
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  Speaker 1: a period of time.
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  Speaker 2: That and also for building inspections, are well prepared and
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  Speaker 2: that they don't have rework that needs a re inspection
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  Speaker 2: because that takes takes time. Those builders who don't use
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  Speaker 2: the council as a building a control system and a
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  Speaker 2: review and sort of having to teach them what does
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  Speaker 2: and what cannot happen. So I need if they restrict
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  Speaker 2: it to LBPS and those with track records, that will
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  Speaker 2: provide the conference to life.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah right, So I'm just just trying to play things
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  Speaker 1: out in my mind here. If there were a scenario
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  Speaker 1: whereby a builder was having a remote inspection, the inspector
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  Speaker 1: wasn't totally happy with something and needed to inspect it
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  Speaker 1: in person, that would require not only the digital inspection, right,
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  Speaker 1: but also an on site visit in order to sort
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  Speaker 1: out exactly what was wrong.
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  Speaker 2: What you're describing, I think would require a physical inspection
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  Speaker 2: to follow up. And we're sort of advocating that physical
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  Speaker 2: inspection should not be done away from entirely. For the
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  Speaker 2: milestone one we talked about earlier, they should still be
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  Speaker 2: in place.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the final I just wonder how it's kind
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  Speaker 1: quite hard to know given we only have limited use
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  Speaker 1: of remote inspections at the moment, but from the councils
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  Speaker 1: that are using them in the moment at the moment,
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  Speaker 1: do you have any idea how often a building inspector
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  Speaker 1: would end up doing both the video inspection and then
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  Speaker 1: having to go out on site as well.
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  Speaker 2: That's a good question. I don't have an answer to that,
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  Speaker 2: But what would suggest that right now there is not
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  Speaker 2: building because of the lower volume of building consents? Well
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  Speaker 2: down with that work? Yeah right, eighteen months ago, Jack,
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  Speaker 2: this is a really great opportunity to start sort of
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  Speaker 2: rolling some of these initiatives out. And if I said
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  Speaker 2: on its own, I don't think it's a panacea, but
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  Speaker 2: use conjunction with other tools that are available to the
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  Speaker 2: building consent authorities, I think together they could create some efficiencies.
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  Speaker 2: It's not going to reduce the material cost to build,
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  Speaker 2: but it will help reduce time, and project time.
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  Speaker 1: Is money, yeah, right, yeah, so how much time could
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  Speaker 1: they say, what are the potential upsides if this new
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  Speaker 1: system works.
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  Speaker 2: Well well in a busy building consent environment. So we
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  Speaker 2: were eighteen months ago waiting around for projects for building
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  Speaker 2: inspections that could add weeks to a project. If you're
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  Speaker 2: thinking about the finance holding costs to the property owner
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  Speaker 2: associated with that, each week that goes by is a cost,
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  Speaker 2: and it's also additional days and weeks that contractors are
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  Speaker 2: on site.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, right, Okay, it comes to the cost. Yeah. I
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  Speaker 1: mean the thing that I'm sure many of our listeners
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  Speaker 1: will immediately think about it as something like the leaky
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  Speaker 1: homes saga and worry that any relaxation of oversight in
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  Speaker 1: the building and construction sector will ultimately lead to a
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  Speaker 1: degradation and quality and we could find ourselves with the
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  Speaker 1: FIASCA that we have in the past. What would be
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  Speaker 1: your message to those people?
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  Speaker 2: So my message to those people is to mitigate risk,
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  Speaker 2: and you can do that by ensuring that you're build
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  Speaker 2: a trade qualified and aligned with the trade association that,
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  Speaker 2: in combination with those suggestions that remote inspections not be
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  Speaker 2: available to everybody as a discretion of the Council LBPS
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  Speaker 2: and those with a good track record, that should mitigate
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  Speaker 2: risk for the Horme owner.
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  Speaker 1: And Malcolm, as you mentioned, construction consents are well down
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  Speaker 1: on where they were even just twelve months ago. So
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  Speaker 1: how long will it take before this is standardized across
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  Speaker 1: the country do you think?
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  Speaker 2: Well? The government is going at pace with the whole
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  Speaker 2: range of building consenting changes and proposals. This is the
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  Speaker 2: second one this week, for example, So they've certainly got
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  Speaker 2: the bit between the teeth and I must all them.
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  Speaker 2: Their main driver is to reduce the cost of building
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  Speaker 2: in this country and it'd be no argument from Promistry
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  Speaker 2: that we do have high building costs or anything that
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  Speaker 2: can do lead towards reducing that is to be applauded.
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  Speaker 2: So they're on the right track. They've got to start
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  Speaker 2: getting coordinated with some of these ideas and start bringing
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  Speaker 2: them together and work with industry.
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  Speaker 1: Well see, thanks Malcolm, appreciate your time. That is Malcolm Fleming,
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  Speaker 1: the CEO of New Zealand Certified Builders,