NSW Fair Trading is to recruit 30 new building inspectors and auditors to lift confidence in residential construction.
Minister for Better Regulation and Innovation, Kevin Anderson said the 30 new inspectors and auditors would join an existing team of 30 that had been active in the field since September.
Mr Anderson said the new inspectors would play a critical role in implementing Fair Trading’s new proactive compliance strategy to identify and resolve defects before projects were completed.
“Having the legislation in place is one thing, but enforcing it is another,” Mr Anderson said.
“We’ll now have an army of inspectors looking at both building work and the quality of the many designs and certificates that go into that construction,” he said.
“We want to knock out the dodgy players and make sure that customers can have confidence when they are handed the keys to their new apartments.”
Mr Anderson said funds had been allocated to Fair Trading to continue its work in modernising and digitising the construction sector.
“Over the next 12 months we’ll be introducing a number of new digital solutions that will aid the work of the regulator, as well as provide positive outcomes for those working in, or looking to buy into the residential market,” he said.
“We’ve already progressed a series of tools, including a risk ratings tool, digital assurance product and the strata portal to transform how this sector operates and how we regulate it.”
Mr Anderson said the number of buildings audited had tripled since the introduction of the tools and Fair Trading was working to analyse more than 170 million lines of data, the results of which were expected to provide a clear picture of who the problem operators were and what projects they were working on.
