The Annual Monitoring charge for monitoring resource consents is an annual fee that the consent holder will pay each year until the consent either lapses or expires.
The charge is for costs associated with ongoing consent management responsibilities which include the administration, supervision and maintenance of resource consents. It is not for physical compliance monitoring on site visits/inspections
What does it cover
1. Initial information about your resource consent or account, once granted (and therefore no longer part of the consent application process)
2. Specific computer hardware and software to capture and store consent related data in the RMA database (a separate database, not a subset of a general rating database).
3. The management, updating and maintenance of records of your consent on our computer database
4. Recording and processing of any changes in the status of a consent e.g. surrenders, transfers, lapsing procedures, change of address details etc.
5. Administration of compliance monitoring invoice and collection services (ongoing).
6. Reviewing the funding policy (ongoing per any annual plan requirements) and associated analysis.
7. Interpreting and implementing (including staff training) new government regulations; NES etc. Formulating new proposals to give effect to new work – i.e. Proposal for septic tank ‘warrant of fitness’
8. Reporting to MFE (e.g. data for Clean Streams Accord, enforcement data survey, supplying data as requested on levels of compliance/non compliance for various activities/areas etc)
9. Supplying information to consultants (generally on behalf of consent holders)
10. Brief phone inquiries (5 to 10 mins) previously charged for in 15 minute blocks ($102 per hour)
Before this charge was introduced only those consent holders that were actually monitored or required information on their consent conditions paid for the total cost of all compliance monitoring. Environment Canterbury did not considered this to be equitable and have developed a charging structure where all resource consent holders pay a portion towards these compliance costs.