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3 Review Methodology

From the terms of reference, a set of key areas and questions were developed (refer to Appendix 1) around the main factors that influence a council’s ability to meet statutory timeframes, as follows:

  • activities that generate the workload

  • public guidance

  • resource consent process

  • people

  • tools

  • reporting

  • general context.

The onsite portion of the review involved teams from the Ministry for the Environment (MfE) spending on average three days at each council.

While onsite the teams discussed the resource consents process and practice with council staff, viewed council systems, assessed databases, assessed file information and undertook analysis of findings and data.

MfE staff focused on identifying the barriers to making decisions on resource consent applications within the statutory timeframes by specifically asking the question ‘where do the days go and why?’

The review looked nine months beyond the survey period to see if:

  • the councils had changed their process to improve performance

  • the survey results reflected circumstances that existed at the time but now no longer exist.

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