Transcript Slide 1

UK Better regulation projects
Helen McColm, June 2014
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Sources of Regulation
Stock
(Existing Regulation)
Flow
(New Regulation)
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UK Better Regulation programme today
• 1. Managing domestic regulation
– Red Tape challenge to review stock of existing
legislation
– Focus on Enforcement
– ‘One-in, Two-out’ rule for all new legislation
• 2. Managing EU regulation
– Working with other Member States to call for EU level
efforts to reduce regulatory burden
– Preventing extra costs when implementing (“gold-plating”)
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Tackling the stock – the birth of Red
Tape Challenge
The Prime Minister set a challenge in April 2011:
“We need to tackle regulation with vigour both to free businesses to
compete and create jobs, and give people greater freedom and
personal responsibility... Our starting point is that a regulation should
go or its aim achieved in a different, non-government way, unless
there is a clear and good justification for government being involved.
And even where there is a good case for this, we must sweep away
unnecessary bureaucracy and complexity, end gold-plating of EU
directives, and challenge overzealous administration and
enforcement” http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/letter-from-the-prime-minister-on-cutting-red-tape/
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How does the Red Tape Challenge
work?
- A public website which let business and taxpayers have their say
about burdensome regulations they face. Intention has been to
root out unnecessary, overcomplicated regulation that strangles
businesses and economic growth – but keep the regulation that is
needed.
- Regulations were grouped into themes and all comments were
considered. Policy leads were challenge by ministers on whether
the legislation was still needed and/or whether its implementation
could be improved.
- For each theme there was a period of time during which
stakeholders could submit their views on regulation
http://www.redtapechallenge.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/home/index/
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The process
1. Identify regulations
2. Assign them to
themes
4. Analyse comments
and concerns raised
5. Challenge
7. Post Star Chamber
8. Collective
Agreement &
Reducing Regulation
Committee
UNCLASSIFIED
UNCLASSIFIED
3. Launch a theme
and seek views
6. Star Chamber
9. Implementation
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Themes of legislation the RTC
process has analysed
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Retail
Hospitality, Food and Drink
Road Transportation
Health and Safety
Manufacturing
Environment
Equalities
Children’s Services & Independent
Schools
Employment Related Law
Rail
Energy
Housing & Construction
Water
Challenger Businesses
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Medicines
Maritime
Aviation
Company & Commercial Law
Insolvency
Pensions
Business Services
Civil Society
Marine
Sports & Recreation
Planning Administration
Legal Services
General Aviation
Healthy Living & Social Care
Agriculture
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Headline figures:
We have received and analysed almost
30,000 comments and over 1,500 inbox submissions.
We have reviewed over 5000 regulations so far and
identified over 3,000 to be scrapped or improved.
Oliver Letwin – Minister
for Government Policy
Red Tape Challenge is set to save businesses
£850 million per year by the end of this Parliament.
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What was said and what we did about it:
Changes to primary legislation
2011 - This Act requires retailers to notify the TV
Licensing Authority whenever a TV, DVD, video recorder,
digital box or PC with TV card is sold within 28 days of
every sale and provide full details of the customer. The
Act was introduced in 1967. Modern communication
methods means that such steps are now redundant and
the law should be repealed.”
2013 - Repealed the requirement in primary legislation
removing unnecessary burdens and saving retailers
around £2.5m per year.
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What was said and what we did about it
Changes to the legislative
Spring 2012
framework:
“Building standards being
assessed repeatedly by different
people - such as planners, code
assessors, building control
officers - often looking at the
same issues but coming up with
different answers”
Autumn 2012 – launch a fundamental review of building
regulations and voluntary housing standards to rationalise
the large number of codes, standards, rules, regulation and
guidance that adds unnecessary cost and complexity to the
house building process. Estimated saving of around £60
million to house builders.
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What was said and what we did about it
Changes to guidance:
2012 - The legislative framework for the environment
(covering 257 regulatory instruments, over 10,000 pages
of guidance and 397 data sets) is overly complex and
inconsistent and gets in the way of businesses complying
effectively with their environmental obligations
2013 – Reviewing environmental guidance and datasets
to remove duplication and documents that out of date;
and substantially reduce reporting requirements to make
it easier for businesses to meet their obligations.
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What was said and what we did about it
Changes to enforcement:
2011 – Overzealous enforcement and misinterpretation
of the Health and Safety system wastes time/money and
brings the system into disrepute generally. The principle
that the Health and Safety measures adopted must be
proportional to the risk is too often ignored.
2012 – Removing hundreds of thousands of low-risk
businesses from unnecessary health and safety
inspections.
2013 – Removing the headache of health and safety inspections for
low-risk businesses is a step change. Scrapping unnecessary and
unpredictable inspections is a valuable piece of deregulation.
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What we have learnt through the process
• It is not just about the regulations but also how they are enforced and
the guidance and advice that accompanies them.
• Some of the structures of government are not designed to promote
holistic legislative approaches for businesses or citizens and therefore
the cumulative impact of our rules on a sector is not always clear.
• To be effective and deliver change you need a strong leadership and a
significant counterweight.
• Evidence and understanding of practical implementation matters.
• Consultation is important but the follow through and deliver is
paramount.
• We can not do it alone. Half our rules come from Europe so we all
need to work together to deliver real change.
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Crowdsourcing: open policy
making
• Simple, low cost Web site
– Comment box making debates transparent
– Set-up and moderation costs are main overheads
– Care with security of data
• Effective – to a degree
– Gets wider views beyond those most commonly received from standard
consultation – provides a starting point and facilitates debate
– But intelligence received can be mixed – the good with the bad,
including campaigns
• Not a standalone option
– Business workshops, stakeholder meetings, blogs etc
– Currently no feedback loop
Email option provides more traditional response
More considered, e.g. trade bodies have consulted members
Sometimes less guarded / more honest than on the Web site 14
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What’s different from consultation
– the “challenge”
Our starting point is that a regulation
should go or its aim achieved in a different,
non-government way, unless there is a
clear and good justification
• After Spotlight closes, Departmental
analysis of proposals and challengeoften using internal ‘Tiger Teams’ or
business panels
Oliver Letwin – Minister
for Government Policy
• Department then produces a set of
proposals on regulatory reform.
• Department then held to account by
RTC Ministers through ‘Star Chambers’
to justify their proposals
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Focus on Enforcement (inspections)
• This is a programme of reviews of the enforcement of
legislation, in sectors as varied as food manufacturing,
chemicals and childcare
• The aim is to identify inappropriate or excessive
enforcement of regulation, and to identify good practice
• Evidence is collected from:
– fieldwork, interviewing businesses and trade
associations as well as policy officials and
regulators operating in the relevant sector
– the Focus on Enforcement website, an open forum for
businesses and citizens to feed back on their
experience
• Reviews produce reports of findings not recommendations
– Departments/ regulators then say what actions they will
take
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Focus on Enforcement
Rolling programme of reviews launched
May 2012
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Small food manufacturers
Chemicals
Volunteer events
Pubs
Fire safety
Coastal Investments and Projects
Appeals
Childcare
Adult care homes
Pharmaceutical products
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Examples of outcomes so far…
• Published findings and action plans from four of the
reviews
• Actions include:
– Joining up of multi-regulator process through:
• A new “marine and Coastal Concordat” to streamline and speed up
planning processes around coastal developments
• Single site-level account manager at high hazard chemicals
operators to reduce burdens from multiple inspections
– Actions to address burdens imposed through guidance, and
reforms to poorly coordinated / contradictory guidance e.g. on
voluntary events
– New online tools to help small businesses comply with food
hygiene requirements
– “Systemic issues” identified (leading to new actions e.g. fees
and charges, “growth duty”, etc)
– All 56 non-economic regulators now publish annual data on one
site
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Business Focus on
Enforcement
• New initiative announced in ‘Small Business: Great Ambition’ Dec
2013
• Business Groups invited to bid to run reviews
• Present findings to Ministers & Regulators & agree reforms
• Developing Business Groups influence & capability
• ‘Call for tender’ period currently open
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Rules for new laws e.g. “one-in, one-out”
•A “One-in, One-out” rule was applied in 2011-12
•A tougher “One-in, Two-out” rule applies from 2013
•£1 of new cost must now be offset by £2 of savings
One-in, One-out: Statement of New Regulation
Position at December 2013 - cost to business (number of regulations made)
INs:
£2.922bn
(56)
Zero
net cost
(108)
Net: -£1,193bn (299)
OUTs:
£4.115bn
(135)
“We will cut red tape by
introducing a ‘one-in,
one-out’ rule whereby
no new regulation is
brought in without
other regulation being
cut by a greater
amount.”
The Coalition: our programme for
government
HM Government
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One-in, Two-out: Process
•Impact Assessments (IAs) show costs and savings for each big regulation
•IA figures are independently checked before Ministers take decisions
•BRE adds up IA numbers to produce a 6 monthly “account” of cost totals
per Ministry
•Each Ministry should make OUTs of twice the value of INs
‘OUT’
‘IN’
Better prioritisation
of regulations
Clearance by
Ministerial
Committee
OUTCOME
Overall net reduction
in regulation
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OITO : Control
Total value of
‘OUTs’ £60M
Total value of
‘INs’ £30M
• Each Department
(Ministry) must ensure
that the value of new INs
is offset by OUTs of
double that amount
• Exceptional Cabinet
clearance (collective
agreement) will need to
be sought for new INs
that do not meet this
condition
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OITO : Transparency
• Government reports publically on performance
every six months, as part of the ‘Statement of New
Regulation’ (SNR)
• SNR also lists the measures expected to come
into force over the following six months
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OITO Benefits : Departments
• Public reporting on
performance to
strengthen accountability
• Improved management of
regulatory programmes
(closer to financial
budget management)
– better planning, including
prioritisation between
new regulatory proposals
– strong incentives to find
OUTs
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OITO : Departments
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OITO Benefits : Policy-Makers
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How will my idea
impact on business?
How can I
minimise the
costs to business
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Do I have an
‘OUT’ that will
offset any ‘IN’ ?
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The importance of action at EU level
• Around 50% of all
regulation affecting
UK business comes
from the EU
• If we are serious
about reducing
regulatory costs then
we need to tackle the
overall regulatory
burden at EU level
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EU Transposition
• Coalition Government made a commitment to end
the ‘gold-plating’ of EU Legislation
• ‘Gold-plating’ is when implementation goes
beyond the minimum necessary to comply with a
Directive by:
– Extending the scope or adding in some way to the
substantive requirement
– Not taking advantage of derogations / flexibilities
– Retaining UK’s pre-existing, higher standards
– Implementing early
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Ending “gold plating”
• In 2011, the Government introduced Guiding Principles for
EU legislation to put a stop to ‘gold plating’ (going beyond
minimum requirements). These rules were further
strengthened in April 2013.
• A review showed that, between July 2011 and December
2012, no proposals assessed under the new principles
placed additional burdens on UK business as a result of
gold-plating.
• Since December 2012, there has only been one instance
of gold-plating placing additional burdens on business
(implementation of the Consumer Rights Directive).
• This was at minimal cost (some £1.35m per annum and a
one-off cost of £0.23m) and ensures greater protection for
UK consumers.
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PM’s Business Taskforce
• In June 2013, the Prime Minister appointed six
business leaders to identify EU rules and regulations
(including proposals) that need reform to help
British and EU companies grow.
• The members of the Taskforce are:
– Marc Bolland, Chief Executive Mark & Spencer;
– Sir Ian Cheshire, CEO Kingfisher [B&Q and
similar EU retailers];
– Glenn Cooper, MD ATG Access [SME
manufacturer];
– Louise Makin, CEO BTG [pharma];
– Dale Murray CBE, Entrepreneur and Angel
Investor; and
– Paul Walsh, formerly of Diageo.
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Taskforce process
• The Taskforce sought contributions from businesses and
groups in the UK and the EU (with help from Embassies)
• Over 100 businesses and business groups across the
EU responded, generating more than 250 ideas for action
• The Taskforce were supported by BIS Minister Michael
Fallon and a Secretariat from the Better Regulation
Executive but the report is that of the Taskforce
• The report was launched on Tuesday 15 October and
welcomed by HMG after a discussion at Cabinet
• The Prime Minister and Taskforce members presented
the report to President Barroso and the heads of
government of Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Poland,
Finland, Estonia and Sweden, in the margins of the
October European Council (OEC)
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Taskforce recommendations
• 30 dossier recommendations that could make a real
difference to growth, e.g:
– Abolishing written risk assessments for low risk businesses
could save €2.7bn
– Completing the digital single market could increase EU GDP
by 4% by 2020
• COMPETE principles to ensure new legislation is fit for
purpose (building on 2012’s Ten Point Plan):
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Competitiveness test;
One-in, One-Out
Measure Impacts
Proportionality rules
Exemptions and lighter regimes for SMEs
Target for burden reduction
Evaluate and Enforce
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Progress on implementation
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We have already achieved ten of the 30 dossier
recommendations:
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non-regulatory approaches on shale gas and traineeships;
a streamlined approach for clinical trials,;
new rules for Environmental Impact Assessments, which
should minimise burdens on SMEs; and
a new framework for Non-Financial Reporting, which will
only apply to businesses with over 500 employees;
proportionate rules on Country of Origin Labelling for Food;
political agreement on the EU-Canada Free Trade
Agreement
withdrawal of soils and access to environmental justice
items
Waste proposal to help SMEs
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Progress and next steps
• Our priority for the new European Commission
is to seek commitment to COMPETE principles
• A range of major EU business organisations,
including BusinessEurope, Eurochambres and
Eurocommerce, along with the European
Parliament, have all issued recent policy
statements in support of the proposals contained
in the Taskforce’s COMPETE Principles.
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Previous UK action
• Our administrative burden
reduction programme ran
from 2005-2010 (link)
• It achieved a 25% saving
• Ministries had their own
targets, and were tracked
• A central panel confirmed
the savings claims
• We worked hard to
communicate the results
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Some big admin cost savings
• Tools to make
employment law easier
e.g. form letters,
“calculators”
• Guidance on health
and safety risk
assessment, with
sample documents
• Rule change so
companies could email
info to shareholders
(one firm went from
posting 35,000 documents
to only 8,000)
• Rule change relating
to housing licences
• Major change to
business-consumer
law
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A big compliance cost saving
• Safer Food, Better Business
– Guidance for SMEs
The information helps
with labelling food, which
helps the hotel – the key
aim is avoiding food
wastage and saving
money
• Specifically designed to help SMEs
• Several information packs and online
tutorials to help small businesses with
food hygiene rules.
• Businesses encouraged to complete the
‘safe methods’ tutorial in the pack and
tailor them to their business
it does go far enough and
• Good feedback and evaluations II think
don’t really think there is much
missing
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Useful links
BRE website:
• https://www.gov.uk/government/topics/regulation-reform
Red Tape Challenge website:
• www.redtapechallenge.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/
Focus on Enforcement website:
• http://discuss.bis.gov.uk/focusonenforcement/
One-in, Two-out account – the Statement of New Regulation
• https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/one-in-two-out-statement-of-new-regulation
Guiding Principles on EU legislation
• https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guiding-principles-for-eu-legislation
PM’s Business Taskforce
• https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cut-eu-red-tape-report-from-the-businesstaskforce
Contact details
[email protected] (+44 207 215 0386)