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 provincialcompliance 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?