Enforcement is not mean or unfair
Throughout my work in compliance and enforcement in Councils and now as a consultant helping councils, I have regularly come across compliance officers who feel uncomfortable using enforcement.
I hear things like:
It seems unfair
They don’t have much money
I feel sorry for them
It’s too much work and I just don’t have time.
Well the first thing to remember is why Councils use enforcement. Enforcement is an essential part of the compliance framework. There is no point developing law, regional and district plans and issuing resource consents if the law, rules and consent conditions are not enforced. People soon realise that there aren’t any consequences if they decide to act outside the law, if their local council doesn’t take any enforcement action. And conversely, the word certainly gets out around an industry if a business in that industry is prosecuted for breaching the law.
You also need to remember why that law exists. The Resource Management Act, for example, helps prevent or at least reduce damage to our natural environment resulting from human activities. The Building Act helps keep our buildings safe and healthy.
Rather than feeling sorry for someone who has broken the law, you need to remember that it simply isn’t fair to those who comply and act within the law to let those who act outside the law get away with it.
And it certainly takes a lot less time to issue someone an abatement and/or infringement notice than it takes to deal with ongoing and repeated non-compliance that has happened because they got away with breaking the law the first or second time with no consequences!
You do, of course, need to use a robust enforcement decision-making process so that you can back up your enforcement decisions if challenged or questioned.
So remember, you aren’t being mean or unfair when you take enforcement action. You are helping to ensure the law is upheld and that people are discouraged from activities that harm us and our environment.
Janet Whiteside – August 2024
