NSW building reforms
The latest tranche of reforms to the regulation of construction in NSW came into effect from 3 July. The Design and Building Practitioners Act 2020 and Residential Apartment Buildings (Compliance and Enforcement Powers) Act 2020 is now expanded to class 3 and 9c buildings, following the initial rollout to class 2 buildings.
The Department of Customer Service also started a process of further consultation on the Government’s election commitments, aiming for the introduction of legislation and supporting regulations into Parliament in 2024.
This kicked off with an initial scoping paper for classes of licensed work on residential and commercial buildings, an engineering practice standard for registered professional engineers (with an accompanying regulatory impact statement) and a regulatory impact statement on the proposed introduction of mandatory decennial liability/latent defects insurance in new class 2 buildings.
The paper outlines the Department’s policy positions on the framework for building and construction licensing in NSW to guide ongoing conversations about the framework structure and key elements, which licences will be captured in the framework, and how the framework will reflect the day-to-day work of industry practitioners. The policy positions were informed by thousands of pages of survey responses and submissions, and many hours of consultation. The Department is using a co-design approach to further develop and refine proposals for the licensing framework.
The key issue for the DIA is licensing of Interior Designers. Our submission in response to the paper argued that introducing licensing for Interior Designs would not only resolve recent impediments to the practising of their profession arising from new regulations, but also deliver tangible benefits for consumers. Consumers are being forced to use architecture practices to meet their briefs for small scale work that previously could have been undertaken by Interior Designers. This can increase the costs to consumers, and if they want the services of an Interior Designer as well, they are paying more overall for the same outcome.
The Department has not yet reached a position on how to include Interior Designers in the regulatory framework. They note that licensing them would increase the regulatory burden by adding thousands of licence holders to NSW Fair Trading’s remit, as well as compliance costs for the Government. They suggest that the lack of evidence of harms indicates that industry regulation or self-regulation may be operating effectively.
The next consultation activity is a roundtable on professional indemnity insurance to discuss risks and opportunities.