Construction Compliance Information Portal

Presenter: Carol MacCulloch, President, CANS

NS Construction Industry

• NS construction industry provides goods and services in support of $4 billion new capital investment in NS each year non-residential 60%, residential 40% • More than 27,000 people in NS are employed in the construction sector – of which 7,300 are self employed • Only 130 of the 4,000 construction companies in NS have more than 50 employees – most have less than 4

Portal Project Goal To create a one-stop access point to provincial compliance information for the NS construction industry

Partners in the Portal Project

• CANS • NS Environment • NS Labour and Workforce Development • NS Natural Resources • NS Tourism, Culture, and Heritage • NS Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal • Service NS and Municipal Relations • Workers’ Compensation Board of NS **Other departments were consulted but had no requirements for construction industry

What information can be found on the Construction Portal?

• provincial regulatory & legislative requirements • provincial licenses, permits, approvals, certificates & registrations • guidance documents • training information • contact information • not included: federal and municipal requirements – some information there, but only what we found through provincial sites

How is the information organized?

• by type of construction activity • additional info under Employer/Employees, and Resources sections

Benefits

• Increases awareness, therefore increases compliance • Decreases administrative burden for individuals and businesses in construction • Helps the industry do business with gov’t • Informs people on industry and requirements • Organized by how the industry might search • One stop access for construction related information

Benefits (cont’d)

• Helps both small and large businesses the find info they need • Users can keep up-to-date when regs/requirements change • Internet is being used more often by more people • User friendly, accessible, comprehensive resource • Helps distinguish rumours from facts and standardizes and validates the information • Feedback/Questions section allows for ongoing improvements and specific questions

Status & Future Plans

• Portal site is still draft/demo - being finalized - should be available for use by end of October 2008 (tentative) • Gov’t is developing a communications plan, and will work with CANS to promote portal • Gov’t will continually monitor feedback received about the portal and discuss with Construction Portal Committee • Gov’t will utilize website tracking tool called “web trends”, to give us an idea of the success of the portal by tracking pages hit most often, how many views a particular page gets, etc.

Portal Players

• Project owner and sponsor - CCI • Coordinator - Gwen Gorrill, IBS • Experts in NSE and NSLWD divisions • Experts in other departments/agencies • Construction Association of NS (CANS) • Web experts

Questions?