Our recommendations

1. We recommend that Auckland Council bring forward the introduction of an electronic lodgement system for building consent applications.
2. We recommend that Auckland Council reduce the average time it takes to process building consent applications by:
   • accelerating its initiatives with risk-based consenting;
   • reducing the work in progress pipeline and the 70% "on hold" rate; and
   • setting progressively more stringent performance targets for the percentage of building consents it issues within 40 working days.
3. We recommend that Auckland Council improve how it communicates with building consent customers by:
   • providing better guidance material to help in advancing the consenting process;
   • making its website easier to navigate;
   • encouraging telephone calls to supplement and better explain formal communications;
   • increasing the target for customer satisfaction;
   • more proactively addressing the underlying problems that lead to common customer complaints;
   • ensuring that staff have training that puts them "in the shoes" of the customer, so they are better able to respond proactively and with empathy; and
   • extending and refining the web-based consents tracking system, so that customers can see at any time the progress of their consent application.

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