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Red Tape Challenge &Open Policy Making
Charlotte Spencer, Cabinet Office
Sophie George, BIS
Neil Smith, Cabinet Office
2
The Red Tape Challenge and Open Policy Making
Prime Minister, April 2011: “We need to tackle regulation with vigour both to free businesses to compete & create jobs, and give people greater freedom and personal responsibility”
• Deregulation tried before, but this time they meant it!
• One In One Out rule tackled ‘flow’, but still needed to ‘drain swamp’.
• Examining all [most] of the stock of inherited regulation, grouped in themes e.g. Retail, Company Law
• Added Sept 2012 – target to find, by 2013, 3,000 regulations to scrap or reform.
Open Policy Making...
• Crowd-sourcing
• Sector champions (including at Star Chambers)
• Panels of ‘real’ businesses
• External ‘Challenge Panels’
• Twitter / social media
• LinkedIn group
• Alternatives to regulation
• Behaviour change
• International sharing
External input helped drive the change
• Counter-cultural to many – surely key role of Whitehall to regulate?
• Lots of external input provided new ideas; new evidence; reality checks...
...and gave Ministers substance to challenge Depts’ defence of regulation.
•But combined with:
•Alignment with other incentives – the need to find ‘OUTs’ ; growth; efficiency; Civil Service Reform, digital by default...
•Strong (and sustained) central and political momentum
•Pace - ambitious targets in tight timescales
•Supported by lean joint Cabinet Office/BIS team, partnering with Depts
Doing policy-making & ‘challenge’ process a bit differently
• External input key to the challenge process and weaved in throughout
• Star Chamber meetings felt different
• officials (not Ministers) in front of Oliver Letwin & Michael Fallon
• the policy lead did the speaking (however junior)
• business presence (often)
Dept’s internal challenge processes
RTC team challenge meeting/s
Star Chamber (often with Sector Champ.)
Reducing RegulationCommittee / policy clearance
‘Coalition Proofing’
Announce theme outcomes
Business Panel
Theme launch;Comms; Sector Champion;People comment
Dept.implements
(Implementation Star Chambers; secondary repeals;Deregulation Bill)
Mark Ramsden (May 5)We cannot sell Christmas
crackers to under-16s because they fall within the
scope of the legislation. Such common and low-risk goods,
which we do not believe were the intended focus of the legislation, should be
exempted.
C Scales (May 26): We wish to allow guests to pre-
order champagne for special occasions (to be waiting for
them in a B&B room) or a bottle of wine to go with their dinner
in the self-catering accommodation – this is a
service (we are not next door to pubs or shops) and unlikely to
create profit. For this we would have to go through the same
licensing procedure and costs as a pub.
Adrian D. Greason-Walker (May 23): This regulation requires that no smoking signs be placed at each entrance to smoke-free premises. The ban on
smoking in enclosed public spaces has now been in force for a number of years we see little need for businesses to continually replace signage
[..] The signs are also unsightly as well as
unneeded
Stephen Perrett (Nov 14): Extend the qualifying period to 2 years – compulsory mediation like you are introducing in other areas such as divorce.
Crowdsourcing - useful comments
The Successes
7
•5,669 regulations went through the process (target of 6,500)
•3,131 ‘scraps or improves’ with impact (target of 3,000) + 49 others not attached to a particular regulation e.g. big rationalisation of Defra guidance
• 800 reforms implemented so far, saving business £300m per year
• In total the reforms should save business over £800m per year (plus other savings not yet quantified, and savings to individuals and public bodies)
Big wins include:
•Introduced fees for Employment Tribunals (deters vexatious claims) and doubled the qualifying period for unfair dismissal.
•Scrapped unnecessary H&S inspections for 100,000s low risk businesses.
•Changed collective redundancy rules to save businesses £66m a year.
•Equality Act: employers no longer liable for staff harassment by a 3rd party.
8
UNCLASSIFIED
UNCLASSIFIED
Challenges & Lessons
9
“Well, if it can be thought, it can be done, a problem can be overcome”
• Virtually the whole statute book was a lot! More targeted next time?
• Departments’ ability to push it – resources; Ministers; Coalition issues
• Parliamentary process – not designed for volume of reform
• Seeing things through to completion
• Communicating the success – some of this only Whitehall will appreciate; & businesses still see new regulation (EU; govt policy priorities) coming in.
• Crowd-sourcing – needs a feedback loop. And didn’t replace need for formal consultation on substantial changes.
• Data protection
UNCLASSIFIED
Challenges & Lessons
9
“Well, if it can be thought, it can be done, a problem can be overcome”
• Virtually the whole statute book was a lot! More targeted next time?
• Departments’ ability to push it – resources; Ministers; Coalition issues
• Parliamentary process – not designed for volume of reform
• Seeing things through to completion
• Communicating the success – some of this only Whitehall will appreciate; & businesses still see new regulation (EU; govt policy priorities) coming in.
• Crowd-sourcing – needs a feedback loop. And didn’t replace need for formal consultation on substantial changes.
• Data protection