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#18-01 Re-organisation of the ratification process for policy, standards and guidelines documents managed by System Design & Delivery

Published: | Category: Technical advice note | Audiences: Road controlling authorities, Roading contractors

This Technical advice note is to advise of changes to the process for ratifying policy, standards and guidelines contained in documents managed by System Design and Delivery (SDD) Group.

General information

This Technical advice note is to advise of changes to the process for ratifying policy, standards and guidelines contained in documents managed by System Design and Delivery (SDD) Group.

Since the organisation changes came into force on 3 July 2017, all previous approval processes applying to policies, standards and guidelines no longer apply and the SDD Group was required to develop new processes commensurate with the organisational delegations that now apply.

Delegation

Without exception, any document that has been produced post 3 July 2017 as a policy, standard or guideline has been subject to an approval in accordance with delegations that were subsequently approved. In the case of SDD documents requiring ratification, the delegation that applies is BR141, which requires the Senior Manager Operational Policy, Planning and Performance (OPPP) to ratify changes to the operational policies and standards for all of SDD Group. All such documents containing policies, standards and guidelines that have been published by SDD Group after 3 July 2017 but have not been subject to a ratification process will need to be retrospectively approved in terms of this delegation.

Requirements

The Senior Manager OPPP has required a process to be developed to assist with the approval of policy, standard and guideline documents for the SDD Group. That process has been developed by a working group representing the full breadth of the Group and has been signed off by the Senior Manager OPPP. The process can be found on the Highway Information Portal under the Processes sub-heading at http://www.nzta.govt.nz/roads-and-rail/highways-information-portal/processes/.

The process makes it clear that the technical aspects of new standards are to be developed in conjunction with the technical leaders and is aimed at ensuring that the Group documents are covering the wider responsibilities now within our management. Once the documents have been through the development process they will be reviewed by the appointed Ratification Group, who will apply a governance overview to the process. The Ratification Group will submit agreed documents to the Senior Manager OPPP for approval.

In addition there is a process available for determining the approval process for Technical advice notes (TAN). Where the approval of a TAN has a financial implication, it also needs to go through a ratification process. Documentation to assist the assessment of the requirement to apply for ratification is included at the same information site.

Documents to be submitted to the Ratification Group and their attached ratification reports can be forwarded by sending them via e-mail to Group address SDD - OPPP - Standards and Guidelines.

Publication details

Author: NZ Transport Agency
Published: 29 June 2018
Version: 1
Found at: http://www.nzta.govt.nz/roads-and-rail/highways-information-portal/technical-advice-note/

Further information

To submit documents or if you have any questions or feedback, please email SDDOPPPSaG@nzta.govt.nz.

David Darwin & Kevin Reid