Policy Exchange has today published a new report arguing that the
United Kingdom has a unique opportunity to streamline and
modernise regulation to deliver the high environmental and social
standards citizens desire, while also giving the British economy
the competitive edge it needs in the post-Brexit age.
“Re-engineering Regulation: A Blueprint for Reform”
calls for a rethink in the approach to regulation, putting
forward recommendations to create a more agile and accountable
regulatory system.
The Re-engineering Regulation project brought together an
advisory panel of leading figures from a range of fields across
the public and private sector to advise on regulation, including:
, former Cabinet Secretary and
National Security Adviser; Sir John Armitt, Chairman of the
National Infrastructure Commission and National Express Group;
, Vice-President of the CBI
and Chairman of the Cobra Beer Partnership; Dame Patricia
Hodgson, former Chair of Ofcom, and former Principal of Newnham
College, Cambridge; and Dame Elaine Inglesby-Burke
CBE, non-executive director at the National Institute for
Health and Care Excellence (NICE), and former Interim Chief Nurse
at Liverpool Universities Hospitals.
The report proposes three big ideas when it comes to revamping
regulation post-Brexit:
1) Streamlining the regulatory system to focus on
outcomes, not process:A call for fewer, more
authoritative regulators, with clear mandates, accountable to
Government and Parliament, for promoting the health assuring the
hygiene of their sectors, judged on impact not process, including
through regular independent review by the National Audit
Office.
2) Collaboration and triaging to target
regulators’ interventions and cut red tape: Regulators
should be required to collaborate with each other and with
international counterparts to triage their interventions to
minimise the regulatory burden on compliant individuals and
institutions, support and coach the inadvertently non-compliant
(especially SMEs), while putting most effort into tackling the
deliberately abusive.
3) Ensuring regulation is responsive to
evidence of success and failure:Regulators should be
dynamic and responsive, establishing feedback loops and internal
challenge, while drawing on data analysis and behavioural
science, plus the experience of public servants at the sharp end
and citizens and business on the receiving end, to ensure that
their regimes and interventions are no more than is necessary to
deliver the public safety and confidence in their mandate.
In his foreword to the report, advisory panel Chair
writes:
“Whatever the direction of fiscal and monetary macro-policy,
re-shaping the supply-side micro-economy is vital to the growth,
productivity and competitiveness on which our future prosperity
depends. Getting regulation right is central to that effort.
Every pound spent on precautionary padding is a pound not
invested in public service improvement or business
innovation.”
Commenting on the release of the report, said:
"Brexit is a huge opportunity to rethink how the UK
approaches regulation, in doing so pitching itself as the
smartest, most future focused regulator, winning the big bets on
the economy and giving us a competitive advantage on the
world stage. To co-ordinate that mission we need to put
in place the right plumbing across government, within regulators
and for parliament to provide scrutiny to ensure that regulation
is balanced and proportionate.”
Dame Patricia Hodgson added:
“Regulators need to do less and do it better; with a focus on
necessary protections and on costing our economy less.”
To read the report in full, please visit www.policyexchange.org.uk
