The five statutory pillars of good RMA administration point to an irresistible case for reliable digital infrastructure such as the Marlborough Resource Management Digital Project to manage processing resource consent applications under Part 6 RMA.
Parliament has described, without any hint of irony, its efforts since 2003 to improve resource consent processing efficiency under Part 6 of the RMA as ‘streamlining’ and ‘simplifying’.
Tweaking the statutory text governing procedures is only ever a partial solution to administrative and implementation issues that lie under the ‘hood’ of the legislative machinery governing the processing of resource consents.
The statutory administrators (local authorities) need tools that enable the proper administration of these regulatory requirements and that fit well with back-end requirements such as accessible and transparent file management and record keeping. This is the nature of government. Parliament sets the framework and the implementation is left to the agencies delegated the statutory role. A Ministry with responsibility for legislation has a function to support implementation.
Digital infrastructure provides an adaptable platform to achieve the required administrative efficiency. It reduces the transactional costs associated with the three key vectors of information derived from a public process under open government norms; information creation, information sharing and information retrieval.
The Marlborough Resource Management Digital Project is a zero-based integrated digital build to manage individual resource consent applications called a Digital Resource Consent Workspace (DRCW) that is the customer facing component. It facilitates the filing of high quality information in a manner that works efficiently with the back-end management of the resource consent process. It also keeps the information stored in publicly accessible ‘buckets’ (e-files) providing a see-through public archive of the process through website portals. That facilitates transparent government.
Parliament introduced RMA s 18A in 2017 and it is entitled ‘Procedural Principles’ to remind local authorities of the importance of effective implementation. Subsection 1 states:
18A Procedural principles
Every person exercising powers and performing functions under this Act must take all practicable steps to—
(a)use timely, efficient, consistent, and cost-effective processes that are proportionate to the functions or powers being performed or exercised;
The five bold words above are adjectives describing the principles behind good process required under Part 6. These five pillars provide a to assess the benefits of the Marlborough Resource Management Digital Project.
Timely
The use of statutory clocks with fee-recovery penalties on Council’s for non-performance is a comparatively unique feature of the RMA. It shows Parliament’s concern that delays in resource access and use is a potential drag on economic efficiency and the use of resources. Meanwhile, Councils have complicated and often contentious decisions to make based on information of variable quality.
The back-end of the DRCW provides an information repository, and therefore its public-facing window provides a reliable file library relating to the application. That feature-set facilitates timeliness by:
- Enabling immediate access to material from the time of lodgement as further processing is not required to bring the file into the digital system.
- Enabling access to multiple members of the Council team at the same time.
- Enabling overflow processing as required by external providers.
- Enabling distribution of digital resources to the public or affected parties using a hyperlink.
- Enabling access to all participants and decision-makers.
Also, the tools built into the system provide information and cues that ensure applicants understand what is required of them with the result that rejections or further information requests are minimised, and this enables timely processing.
Efficient
Efficiency in the administrative context means human resources are employed effectively in the processing task.
The same features that enable timeliness also enable efficiency.
Consistent
Consistent, high-quality information is necessary for effective environmental management and monitoring. The digital build provides noticeboards, best practice guides, checklists, cues and tools to assist the applicant to provide reliable, relevant and, where necessary, expert information concerning the scope of the activity and its effects.
These tools are interactive and can be kept relevant and current by active curation from an expert support team. The local authority can target activity types where particular requirements or best practice guides can be used to inform users. That is another level of sophistication beyond the use by the central government of regulation to provide standard forms and using pithy statements in italics to highlight the nature of the information required. One might call this ‘minimal compliance assistance’. The value of more sophisticated interactive digital tools comes from the theory that much of the friction in the current system arises because the expectations are poorly communicated and poorly understood.
Digital spaces of this type also provide an ‘object’ to work upon to make measurable efficiency improvements. They offer a focus for collaborative efforts to make progress, and the fact the content is inherently malleable creates opportunities for meaningful adaptation over time.
The framework provides an excellent way to train new staff on a systematic approach to implementation of legislation and thereby improves the resilience of the system and achieves greater consistency in administration.
Cost-effective
The RMA enables local authorities to recover the cost of processing. The cost of obtaining resource consents is calculated based on methods that often work backwards from calculations of the average cost of work categories.
If a system facilitates complete applications that can be conveniently processed and accessed, then individual time allocations by staff for each part of the process is made efficient.
Also, the average cost of management will fall over time as the ‘overhead’ of maintaining standards and consistency, that good environmental management requires, will reduce.
Proportionality
The biggest risk to users of disproportionate requirements is unsupported staff making unsystematic decisions as well as poor transparency regarding local authority requirements.
The digital system provides a decision-making ecosystem that supports and guides decision making through multiple digital resources. It also communicates requirements publicly that provide a bench-mark for assessment and the opportunity for feedback.
Together these elements will assist in achieving the proportionate exercise of powers through the entire resource consent process.
