Our recommendations

We recommend that the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board:

1. review its Licensing Policy Statement to ensure that it complies with the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Act 2006 and administrative law principles;
2. discuss with the Department of Building and Housing whether mechanisms under the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Act 2006 are clear and appropriate for controlling the work of exempt people carrying out plumbing, gasfitting, or drainlaying work;
3. revise its Licensing Policy Statement to include a discussion of how it defines "supervision";
4. review its Registration Policy Statement to ensure that it complies with the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Act 2006 and administrative law principles;
5. write further policies to guide the exercise of its other powers under the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Act 2006 and, in doing so, that it carefully consider the legal basis for such policies;
6. consider with the Department of Building and Housing whether the legislation needs to be amended to deal with registration and licensing issues;
7. in preparing questions for any future examinations, ensure that the questions are appropriate for assessment under the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Act 2006, are able to be answered, are free of mistakes, and do not contain unrealistic scenarios;
8. review its processes for preparing and moderating questions, and for setting examination papers;
9. work with the Ministry of Economic Development and the Department of Building and Housing to consider what changes may be needed to enable the gas certification system to operate as an effective public safety protection;
10. work closely with the Ministry of Economic Development and the Department of Building and Housing to develop a gas audit process that provides adequate assurance of the safety of self-certified gas installations;
11. review its policies for registering well-qualified and experienced plumbers and gasfitters migrating to New Zealand to ensure that its current policies give appropriate effect to its statutory discretion and to ensure that New Zealand makes the best use of the skills of such immigrants;
12. clarify whether it can issue provisional licences to overseas plumbers, gasfitters, and drainlayers before they apply for registration;
13. maintain and embed a practice of reviewing all of its fees and charges against the good practice guide, Charging fees for public sector goods and services, to ensure that it is budgeting and setting fees in keeping with its legal authority and good practice expectations;
14. establish a simple and effective complaints process for tradespeople who are unhappy with a particular Board decision or action, so that there is an accessible and transparent mechanism for getting a prompt review of a decision or action; and
15. establish an immediate and short-term process for considering and resolving grievances arising from previous Board decisions that may have wrongly disadvantaged a tradesperson.