The Victorian Building Authority (VBA) is working with industry to develop a set of improvements to better support relevant building surveyors (RBS), including in how Directions to Fix (DTF) and Building Orders (BO) are issued and what they contain.
The VBA recognises building surveyors need effective support to discharge their statutory role. Our Compliance and Enforcement Policy Framework signals to industry the VBA will be an effective point of escalation for referred DTF and BO and act consistently and firmly against builders who breach their core obligations, including how they engage with RBS.
These reforms will provide a more predictable and constructive education and disciplinary framework. This will help the RBS produce consistent and enforceable notices that are straightforward to escalate to enforcement.
With the support of Government through the Business Acceleration Fund, the VBA is:
- Partnering with industry to develop a package of mandatory inspection resources, to provide guidance on the kinds of issues to account for in common inspections.
- Developing an 'e-learning' module for RBS, on how to best issue DTFs and BOs, common drafting issues to avoid and securing builder compliance in different scenarios.
- Developing changes to how we receive notifications and escalated notices and orders, through added features in BAMs and streamlined processes.
These reforms will take place over 2024-25 and provide an opportunity to refresh the way the regulator collaborates with the surveying profession, encourage more referrals to the VBA to support surveyors who do not currently engage with us about compliance matters and address common problems with unenforceable instruments, as under the Code of Conduct for Building Surveyors 2.5.3, the RBS is required to 'make every effort' to ensure instruments are correct.
Our revised approach to dealing with escalated DTFs and BOs will include:
- Where a notice is not directly enforceable due to administrative or drafting issues, referring RBS to e-learning modules in the first instance.
- A more direct approach to engaging with builders about the importance of cooperating with the RBS and acting on the 'root cause' of the DTF, where feasible.
- Encouraging proactive engagement from RBS, recognising only a minority currently refer matters to us.
This will also lead to changes in how the VBA responds to unenforceable instruments. Our enforcement focus is not on administrative or drafting issues, which will be used as an education opportunity. We will engage with the building surveying profession on appropriate and proportionate discipline steps under our future model, for the minority of building surveyors that do not make efforts to improve practices.
It is hoped this new collaborative approach will help improve the quality of referrals to the VBA, which will better support the building surveying profession and ensure non-compliances are consistently acted on, and the regulator can consistently act to address building practitioners doing the wrong thing.
