NCC Readability - why it's so important

For the last 18 months I have been working on the ABCB's project to increase the readability of the NCC. It's been in our IGA since 1994 to ensure that the NCC is "expressed in plain English," but it's not exactly easy to achieve when you have several hundred pages of highly technical and specifically written requirements. So, we have been working with external consultants BBS Communications to help re-write the code and make it just that little bit easier to understand.

Early last year, the Board agreed to a two stage approach to improve the NCC's readability. The first stage would be to improve the structure, ordering and reading ease of Volume Three (the plumbing code). While the concept wasn't rocket science, getting it technically accurate was the hard part. Additionally, we developed the NCC Governing Requirements. This involved amalgamating all three General Requirements (Parts "A" and "1") of the NCC into one consistent set of rules. The development of the Governing Requirements was undertaken with consideration given to how the NCC will look on the new online platform, as well as how new or less frequent users of the NCC might navigate and extract information from the code. The satisfying part of this process was examining complex parts of NCC Part A and re-writing the content with the attitude of "calling a spade a spade". Stage one of the project is proposed for NCC 2019 and is currently out for comment in the NCC Public Comment Draft.

Stage two of the project is far more complex and is in the process of commencement. It will look at the contents of Volumes One and Two, taking the same approach as Volume Three. Furthermore, efforts will be made to create a consistent NCC structure. That is, a common numbering and clause structural system across all three volumes. This is a huge piece of work, and is targeted to be included in NCC 2022.

So what happens now? We need your comments on what's been proposed (stage one). Whether they are positive, negative or neutral, it's really important that we get industry's feedback, because at the end of the day, industry has to use it.

A complete overview of the proposed readability changes for NCC 2019 can be found here. Have a read of the overview document first and then explore what's in store for NCC 2019.