Continuing professional development on the National Construction Code

Overview

In 2017, Building Ministers authorised an assessment of the effectiveness of compliance and enforcement systems for the Australian building and construction industry. Recommendation 3 of the resulting Building Confidence Report (BCR) states that each jurisdiction requires all practitioners to undertake compulsory continuing professional development (CPD) on the National Construction Code (NCC).

In response, the BCR Implementation Team within the Australian Building Codes Board is developing national model guidance to provide assistance to governments and industry, and to facilitate national consistency. The Team has received input from an Experts Panel, an industry CPD working group and governments.

Stakeholder feedback is now being sought via a discussion paper, which explores and proposes content for inclusion in the model guidance.

The Executive Summary of the discussion paper can be accessed below.

You can access the full discussion paper below or download a copy at the bottom of this page. You can also access a preview of the consultation via the ‘consultation preview’ attachment at the bottom of this page. 

Why your views matter

Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is an ongoing process that maintains and/or improves practitioner competency, and for the purpose of this work, in understanding and applying the NCC.

CPD allows practitioners to:

• better interpret and apply the NCC
• identify non-compliance quickly and to rectify it
• have confidence in the decisions they make in designing, constructing and/or inspecting buildings for compliance, and
• justify their design and construction decisions to other practitioners.

CPD is an educational lever that can contribute to the building industry better valuing compliance with the NCC and other requirements. Ultimately, ensuring practitioners having up-to-date knowledge of the NCC and how to apply it, will increase the number of NCC-compliant buildings, reduce defects and increase consumer confidence in new building and plumbing work.

In addition, anecdotal evidence suggests CPD also ensures a person has confidence in their own level of understanding of regulatory requirements which:

• allows them to contribute to an overall workplace and industry culture where meeting regulatory requirements is valued,
• provides them the confidence to identify instances of non-compliance and explain to others why the work is non-compliant, and
• support other practitioners to understand how to rectify work so it is compliant.

Stakeholder feedback on proposed minimum requirements for CPD on the NCC is essential to informing the development of appropriate guidance for jurisdictions to consider.

What happens next

The BCR Implementation Team will consider the responses received from stakeholders. These responses will help refine and enhance the model guidance. Once the model guidance is finalised, it will be presented to the Board of the ABCB for its review and then to Building Ministers for consideration.