COAG Decision Regulation Impact Statement – Australian Building Codes Board (ABCB)
On 21 May 2020, the Australian Building Codes Board agreed to include in the Governing Requirements of the National Construction Code (NCC) 2019 Amendment 1 a process for the development and documenting Performance Solutions.
Following a number of high profile building failures, a 2018 review of building regulatory systems found public confidence in industry’s ability to deliver safe building outcomes was diminishing. The approach to Performance Solutions was singled out in two recommendations, for their lack of adequate processes and documentation required.
The preferred option requires all Performance Solutions be subject to a process and documentation commensurate with the complexity and risk of a design. The RIS shows this option would be the most complete and effective in addressing the problem. Costs are considered small in the context of the potential benefits of achieving the objective of adequately demonstrating compliance with the NCC in a nationally consistent manner. This is reaffirmed by the results of the impact analysis, which shows that given the potential costs of rectification, few avoided failures would be required to offset the costs each year.
The ABCB prepared a decision-making RIS that was provided to the ABCB Board to inform their decision. The RIS was assessed by the Office of Best Practice Regulation as compliant with the COAG Best Practice Regulation requirements.