• Integration is the key to successful monitoring
     
  • Dedicate staff resources for monitoring within the consents team or integrate across the council
     
  • Be pragmatic and use available skills and knowledge of staff to best effect
     
  • Link consents and compliance monitoring and reporting with state of the environment and policy/plan effectiveness monitoring and reporting
     
  • Specify linkages through a monitoring strategy
     
  • Establish effective feedback loops so consents, compliance and complaints monitoring can provide useful information for other monitoring activities (such as for RMA plan effectiveness and Local Government Act 2002)
     
  • Consider linking RMA consents and compliance monitoring with other council functions that also require monitoring for example, under the Building Act 2004
     
  • Document systems and procedures (such as who does what, when, how and why) because of staff turnover
     
  • Ministry for the Environment two-yearly reporting requirements (RMA survey)