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Regulatory Impact Assessment: FormalInstitutionalization and Practice

KATARÍNA STAROŇOVÁ

Journal of Public Policy / Volume 30 / Special Issue 01 / April 2010, pp 117 - 136DOI: 10.1017/S0143814X09990201, Published online: 25 February 2010

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0143814X09990201

How to cite this article:KATARÍNA STAROŇOVÁ (2010). Regulatory Impact Assessment: FormalInstitutionalization and Practice. Journal of Public Policy, 30, pp 117-136doi:10.1017/S0143814X09990201

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Regulatory Impact Assessment:Formal Institutionalization and Practice

KATARÍNA STARONOVÁ * The Institute of Public Policy, Comenius

University

ABSTRACT

In the last decade regulatory reforms have focused increasingly on effortsto improve regulatory quality. As part of that development policymakershave been encouraged to consider fiscal, socio-economic and adminis-trative effects of proposed legislation when making policy choices. TheCentral and East European EU member states have adopted regulatoryimpact analysis (RIA) mechanisms but so far there has been little analysisof their implementation. This article first compares the manner in whichRIAs have been institutionalised in the Czech Republic, Estonia,Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia. Second, it explores how differences ininstitutionalisation have affected RIA performance. The paper concludesthat there are marked differences in the RIA quality across Central andEastern Europe, notably as a consequence of national differences ininstitutional and administrative contexts and capacities.

Key words: regulatory impact assessment, regulatory quality, institutions, capacity,Central and Eastern Europe

Introduction

Recent years have seen the adoption of a system of ex ante regulatoryimpact assessment (RIA) in many EU countries, including the new EUmember states in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Most studiesassume that the availability and use of information from RIAs lead tobetter law-making and improve regulatory quality (Hahn and Litan; OECD ; European Commission ). RIAs are alsoexpected to enhance the accountability and legitimacy of policy-making and law-making. In the view of both the OECD and the EU,RIA is an integral part of good governance, and economic, social

* The author thanks Jon Ender from Estonia; Katarina Krapež, Slovenia; Jan Pavel,Czech Republic; Krisztina Jager, Hungary; and Marián Kišd’urka from Slovakia forvaluable research assistance in the compilation of data for this article and panellistsand Radoslaw Zubek at the workhop of the European Insitute, LSE, and twoanonymous referees for their helpful comments.

Jnl Publ. Pol., , , – � Cambridge University Press, doi:10.1017/S0143814X09990201

and environmental impact assessment is becoming a standard forpolicy-makers throughout the EU (European Commission ).

There is some literature that has studied the implementation of RIAsystems in the United States, West European states and the EuropeanCommission (Hahn et al. ; Lee and Kirkpatrick ; Radaellia, b; Renda ). But relatively little attention has beengiven to the implementation record of RIA systems in the new EUmember states (but see Kasemets and Liiv ; Staronová ;Zubek ). While some form of RIA is being used in all of thesecountries (OECD SIGMA ), one can expect that RIA performancewill vary across the region. This paper investigates whether this is,indeed, the case. It compares the institutionalization of RIA in fiveCEE countries – the Czech Republic, Hungary, Estonia, Slovakia andSlovenia –, investigates the implementation records and seeks toexplain the differences that it finds. The paper does not focus on thepatterns of diffusion of RIA practices. It assumes that the RIA ‘bottle’has been already diffused; the question is: what ‘wine’ is in the bottle(Radaelli b)?

The study seeks to identify the effects of different types of RIA ruleson performance and on the quality of RIAs. The five countries studiedhere belong to the wave of EU enlargement, but they differ inconditions of RIA implementation. There are differences in theduration of the RIA regime, ranging from years in Hungary to fiveyears in Slovenia. The countries also vary when it comes to thepresence of a coordinating and oversight body that provides RIAguidelines and training. Thus, Estonia has a strategic centre at theState Chancellery, the Czech Republic and Hungary have RIAcoordinating centres at line ministries, whilst Slovakia and Slovenia donot have any type of coordinating centres. Finally, there are furtherdifferences in institutional context, for example, in the availability ofdetailed guidelines. All of these factors are examined with a view toidentifying their effect on the performance of Regulatory ImpactAssessment.

Conceptual framework

RIAs are often understood as tools in the hands of a principal seekingto control an agent (Froud et al. ; Posner ; Rowe ). Theprincipal is the centre of government which introduces the new systemof impact assessment with the aim of improving regulatory outcomes,whereas the agents are line ministries which implement RIA whenpreparing legislative proposals for cabinet decisions. In order to

Staronová

encourage the agent to engage with RIA substantively rather thanformally, the principal sets up an oversight body for RIA quality.Renda () ascribes to such an oversight centre a number of powersand duties, such as advocacy, consultation, guidance, coordination,training, annual reporting and maintaining institutional relations. A keyhypothesis is thus that the more power the centre of government hasin terms of internal oversight, the better the quality of the RIA processand its outputs. Conversely, the weaker the central executive authority,the less oversight in place and the more ministries will treat RIA as anexercise that involves little more than ‘ticking the boxes’.

Resources at ministerial level are also likely to matter for RIAperformance. The way in which formal rules for conducting RIAs havebeen established, the degree to which they correspond to administrativecapacity at the level of line ministries and the broader institutionalcontext are, therefore, important factors to consider when one seeks toaccount for RIA performance. The clearer and more detailed theinstructions provided to the administration by the formal framework ofrules, the higher the probability of good performance. Moreover, onemay expect that the longer formal RIA rules have been in place,the better implementation results are likely to be. However, delay inthe institutionalization of RIA need not mean worse performance if thedelay is due to a careful phase-in of the framework.

The key expectations are thus as follows: the existence of either astrong centre of government or a RIA coordinating body would bereflected in better RIA performance due to enhanced leadership,oversight and guidance. Also, clear formal rules on how to undertakeRIA would have a positive effect on overall results. It may also beexpected that the duration of the RIA regime will affect performancebecause of a learning process at the administrative level.

When it comes to determining RIA quality and how to measure it,Radaelli () distinguishes between two approaches: indicators andtests. In both, the main aim is to check the validity, reliability andother properties of quality. By contrast, Hahn et al. () havedeveloped a scorecard that assesses the key assumptions and theappropriateness and application of models used in particular analyses.The present paper takes yet a different approach. It focuses on thequality of information RIAs contained in the explanatory memorandaattached to draft legislation. Thus, in our analysis, RIAs are not judgedby their validity, truthfulness or the appropriateness of assumptions andmethods used, but simply by, first, the existence of certain types ofinformation contained in the explanatory memoranda, and, second, byindicators of the quality of this information.

The quality of RIA information is evaluated in three principaldimensions: (i) regulatory issues addressed, (ii) types of impact analysis,

Regulatory Impact Assessment: Formal Institutionalization and Practice

(iii) consultation process (cf. European Commission ). Regulatoryissues may include identification of the problem to be solved, objectivesto be achieved, policy options considered, positive and negativeimpacts, comparison of options, monitoring and evaluation. Thesecond dimension relates to the details of the analyses conducted insocial, economic and environmental areas. Traditional fiscal impactassessment (impacts on the state budget) is also included to betterdifferentiate between ‘internal’ impact on the state and ‘external’impact on the society. Thus, this analysis looks at identification ofimpacts in each area, the provision of qualitative or quantitative datain each area, the identification and quantification of costs and benefits,as well as mutual trade offs. The third dimension – consultation process– concerns the way in which affected parties are identified and broughtinto the policy-making process as well as how the results of suchconsultations are presented in the explanatory memoranda.

The study is based on an analysis of explanatory memoranda andRIA statements attached to parliamentary bills that governmentssubmitted to parliaments in or in the Czech Republic . Theempirical analysis omits other material submitted for discussion to thegovernment, such as statements on legislative intent, concept papers,strategies, or action plans. The reason for this empirical focus istwofold. First, most policies in CEE require legislation. Thus, lawstypically have a significant impact on the lives of citizens. Second, it isthe process of preparing legislation rather than the policy processoverall that is usually subject to detailed regulations. The methodologyemployed in this study is based on previous content evaluations ofRIAs (Renda , Zubek , Staronová ), though it differs fromthem in that the present study is designed to probe the effects ofinstitutionalization on performance.

Institutionalization of RIA

This section looks at how the RIA process has been institutionalized inthe five countries studied here. Table summarizes the results.

Typically, RIA is often adopted as part of a wider better regulationagenda. The CEE countries have followed a different path in thisrespect, since in all of them RIA was adopted prior to the developmentof better regulation programmes. Hungary and Estonia are theforerunners in RIA adoption, in and respectively, followedby the Czech Republic and Slovakia. In the Czech Republic, theLegislative Rules of Government introduced a RIA requirement in, but it only entered into force in . In Slovakia, the first

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requirements for RIA were introduced in November via anamendment of the Legislative Rules of the Government, followingrecommendations by the Audit of State Administration. In , theSlovenian government signed The Act on Cooperation between the NationalAssembly and the Government in EU Affairs, which obliges the Governmentto carry out assessments of the impact and implications of draftEU-related measures. Overall, the rhetoric of ‘better regulation’ waslargely absent when RIA was initially adopted.

When it comes to the adoption of RIA guidelines, the record ofCEE states was patchy. By /, only the Czech Republic andEstonia had adopted RIA guidelines, Slovakia did so at the end of. In Estonia, well-structured and detailed manuals have beendrawn up to help the preparation of explanatory memoranda for draftlegislation at both governmental and parliamentary levels as well as amulti-stage system for quality control (Kasemets and Liiv ). TheCzech Republic has prepared guidelines on the basis of prior pilotingof RIA.

The countries studied here, with the exception of Estonia, have notset up strong centres of government that would act as a coordinatingunit vis-à-vis line ministries in the preparation of strategies, inadministrative planning or in synchronising the policy process. InEstonia, overall policy, EU and strategic planning has been entrustedto the State Chancellery (OECD SIGMA ), which has developeda system of communication with liaison personnel in the line ministries.The centre is well organized, with competent staff with good mana-gerial skills and is strong in coordination. It reviews draft laws to ensureconformity with strategic plans and overall government priorities aswell as controlling the quality of explanatory memoranda.

In the Czech Republic and Hungary, there have been some effortsto set up a unit for coordinating RIA, but they have been only partiallysuccessful. In the Czech Republic, there used to be a specialDepartment for Regulatory Reform at the Government Office. Itoperated under direct supervision of the Deputy Prime Minister forEconomic Affairs and consisted of analysts who were to assist in RIAdevelopment in line ministries. In -, the department piloted RIAand developed a methodology which was later adopted by theGovernment (Staronová, Pavel and Krapež, ). The Departmentwas moved to the Ministry of Interior in November , and itsresponsibilities in quality assurance have become unclear.

In Hungary, overall coordination is fragmented. The Prime Minister’sOffice provides overall inter-ministerial coordination and houses aspecial unit composed of advisors who summarize opinions on eachlegislative proposal (OECD SIGMA ). But it is the Ministry of

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Justice that has a general responsibility for law-making and it is herethat, in , the Department of Impact Analysis, Deregulation andRegistration of Law was established. The civil servants of theDepartment elaborated and published the Hungarian RIA methodol-ogy in – (though it was not adopted by the Government as anofficial document) and began several training courses in the field ofRIA and other aspects of better regulation. Nevertheless, ministerialRIA activities have remained mostly isolated and the integrating roleof the Ministry of Justice has not received much backing from thecentre of government, particularly the Prime Minister’s Office.

Slovakia and Slovenia have never had a strategic centre ofgovernment, and only when both governments adopted better regula-tion programs, did they create better small regulation (rather than RIA)units at the level of line ministries. In Slovenia, the Ministry of PublicAdministration and, in Slovakia, the Ministry of the Economy becameresponsible for the implementation of better regulation in and respectively. In both cases, these are single-person units with nopowers over other ministries. Only in did the Slovak governmentadopt a Joint Methodology on RIA, in which it charged four differentministries with oversight for particular areas of RIA: the Ministry ofFinance for fiscal RIA, the Ministry of the Economy for economic RIA,the Ministry of Environment for environmental RIA and the Ministryof Labour, Social Affairs and Family for social RIA. Despite theseefforts, the individual ministries are likely to face fragmentation andhierarchical problems vis-à-vis other line ministries.

RIA performance

Regulatory Issues Addressed in RIAs

Despite the overall frameworks in place, the presentation of theresults of RIA is quite puzzling in several of the countries; theexceptions are Estonia and the Czech Republic, which also possessdetailed RIA guidelines. In the other countries, some information thatis related to RIA, such as the purpose, objectives and need for the draftlegislation, the results of the inter-ministerial review process, referencesto other studies or organisational support for the implementation oflegislation, can be found in different sections of the explanatorymemoranda. Some of the same information is requested by the guidingdocuments themselves in different parts of the explanatory memoranda,which contributes to confusion in presenting information. Sometimes,one finds a summary in the explanatory memorandum, which thenrefers for details to the Statement of Impacts, at other times, the


opposite is the case. In some of the explanatory memoranda, referenceis made to detailed calculations to be found in a third document, whichis not, however, attached to the explanatory memorandum. It is thusimpossible to check the methodology or results of the analysis. Ingeneral, comprehensive executive summaries are missing, as areexplanations of analytical methods used or sources of data (see Table).

The examination of explanatory memoranda shows that infor-mation regarding the purpose of legislation can be found in all of theobserved countries. However, the information on purpose does notprovide detailed information on problems analyzed, but rather is verygeneral. For example, most of EU transposition related issues simplystate ‘EU harmonization’ as the legislative purpose, without any furtherelaboration. Specification of measurable objectives does not meet RIAstandards, except for Slovenia, where measurable objectives are statedin per cent of proposals. Such a non-systematic way of presentinginformation in explanatory memoranda makes it difficult for bothdecision-makers and any interested party to check information con-tained in explanatory memoranda. Only the Czech Republic hasstarted to present data in a new manner: if a statement of RIA iselaborated, it substitutes the explanatory memorandum to avoidconfusion.

Not surprisingly, in most of the RIAs, the analysis of effects takesplace only for the option already chosen. The Czech Republicconducted only RIAs for all the proposals adopted by the Cabinet;however, of these identified and analysed options as a part of RIA.When it comes to the Statement of Impacts, these are attached to theexplanatory memoranda of all proposals in Estonia, Slovakia and

T . Regulatory Issues Addressed in Assessment

Issues

Czech Republicn =

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N % N % N % N % N %

Purpose .Objectives – . . .Options . n/a – n/a – n/a – n/a –Impact statements . .

Parties Affected . . n/a – n/a – n/a –Consultation . . . .

Source: own calculations; n/a means that this type of information is not required by formal ruleson RIA in a given country. In the Czech republic only RIAs have been submitted; the percentageis calculated from the overall number of draft proposals submitted to Cabinet.

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Slovenia. In Slovakia and Slovenia, most of these are of a veryformalistic nature, with statements such as ‘no impact’ or vaguestatements such as ‘the changes will be positive for society’, ‘there areno impacts on citizens, the state budget and the environment’ or even‘non-action will bring sanctions from the EU which are costly’ withoutproviding any further explanations.

The exceptions are Hungary and the Czech Republic, with a largenumber of cases where the draft laws are submitted to and passed bythe Cabinet and do not contain any RIA statement. In fact, inHungary, only one proposal out of contained a RIA statement andin the Czech Republic only RIA statements were prepared. In bothcases, information on costs (particularly on fiscal costs) could be foundin the general sections of explanatory memoranda that did not containRIA statements (see also Table ).

Information on the administrative and organisational implications ofthe implementation of draft legislation is, in general, very limited orabsent. Only Estonia regularly discusses implementation measures suchas organisational problems that need to be solved, changes in functionsand/or structures of ministries or the need for specific trainingprograms. This is even though the discussion of this issue is not, in fact,formally required. As for monitoring and ex post evaluation measures,in none of the countries is such information provided (and is also notformally required).

Analysis of Impacts

This section distinguishes the way in which RIAs identify economic,social and environmental impacts. For EU-related and domestic bills tothe extent that this is possible.

As we can see from Table , an RIA form (Statement of Impacts)is attached to Explanatory Memorandum to draft proposals approvedby the Cabinet in almost every case in Estonia, Slovakia and Slovenia,regardless of whether EU-related or domestic bills are considered. TheCzech Republic has prepared and attached altogether only RIAs, allfor domestic bills only as RIAs are not prepared for EU related bills.In this regard, Hungary performs worst, as it simply ignores RIArequirement and only in one case an RIA form was attached, althoughit does occasionally prepare fiscal RIA.

Even though RIA forms are attached in Estonia, Slovakia andSlovenia and thus generally do address future effects, in Slovakia andSlovenia in more than per cent of the cases they are pro-forma andsimply state ‘there is no impact’ or ‘overall positive impact is expected’either on the economy or on society without any further specification


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or clarification as to how such a conclusion was reached. Estonia stated‘no impact’ or similar phrases only in one third of the cases, whichcorresponds to OECD estimates of the percentage of regulations thatmay not have a significant impact. The Czech Republic, on the otherhand, is a different case, as all cases of RIAs attached are of veryhigh quality.

As far as the individual types of impacts are concerned, only Estoniaanalyzes social impacts (in per cent of cases) and economic impacts(in per cent of cases), followed by Slovenia, which analyzes socialimpacts in per cent of the cases, even though the RIA document doesnot ask for social impacts. In Estonia, the economic RIA is frequentlyrelated to the assessment of administrative burdens on enterprises,based on the Dutch Standard Cost Model. In Slovakia, RIAs addresssocial impacts in close to per cent of cases, however, all of themlimit the discussion to employment strictly within the state and thepublic service and not the labour market in general. Therefore, theyhave not been considered as social impact assessments, as they do notassess impacts external to the state. In general, economic impactassessments are more an exception than the rule. Surprisingly,environmental impact assessments in the five countries remained at avery low level, despite the volume and tradition of environmentalimpact assessments in the EU. This result is striking because Environ-mental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Strategic Environmental ImpactAssessment (SEIA) have already been adopted in four of the countries(but not in Slovenia). Moreover, the Ministries of Environment in thecountries have created specific units dedicated to EIA/SEIA. If thereis any mention of environmental RIA, it is generally limited to thecomment that the bill ‘fulfils EIA’.

The only exception, and a clear pattern across the four countriescan be observed in this respect, is the fiscal analysis in the Statementof Impacts. Fiscal impact assessments are addressed in close to half ofcases in the countries, except for Hungary, where only proposalscontain a fiscal impact assessment. The proportion of fiscal RIAconducted with EU proposals is the same in the relevant countries.Nevertheless, the quality of these varies significantly from case to case,particularly in Slovakia and Slovenia, where in many cases figures aregiven without providing evidence of how they were arrived at. Bycontrast, Estonia and the RIA statements in the Czech Republic aswell as a few examples from Slovakia and Slovenia have a high qualityof fiscal impacts calculated. It seems that RIA, if conducted at all,concentrates exclusively on assessing the financial and budgetaryimpacts of regulations. Fiscal impact assessment in all of the fivecountries is equated with expenditures and costs that fall on the statebudget (and/or the budget of local authorities in exceptional cases).


When one looks in more detail at calculations conducted in fiscalRIAs (Table ), one can see that the emphasis is invariably put on theidentification and quantification of costs and only to a much lesserextent the identification and quantification of benefits. In fact, RIAwith EU related legislation does not provide any benefits only costs.Slovenia is the only country where benefits with EU related legislationare provided, though they are not quantified. Nevertheless, in none ofthe countries does one see efforts to compare costs and benefits. Theabsence of such comparisons is mostly due to RIAs focusing either oncosts or on benefits and only very rarely on both at once.

Parties Affected and Public Consultations

As Table shows, all of the countries identify public administration,e.g. central and local state authorities or state owned enterprises suchas railways, as the main bearers of effects, which are usually alsoquantified. If the citizenry at large is considered, this often amounts tono more than phrases such as ‘the citizenry will benefit’, with noelaboration of how citizens will benefit or any attempt at quantifyingbenefits. Both Slovenia, in per cent of cases, and Estonia, in percent of cases, try to identify specific groups of citizens in proposals.Whereas Slovenia only mentions these groups of citizens (e.g. ‘ownersof cars will have to undertake extra activities’), Estonia goes further andtries to estimate costs and benefits accruing to the identified parties. Asimilar practice is found in identified industries or businesses. Whereasother countries only mention a specific industry, Estonia makes effortsto quantify costs and benefits. Some of the information in Estoniacomes directly from consultation with affected parties.

Consultations have not been conducted in observed countries, withthe exception of Estonia and the Czech Republic (see Table ). InEstonia, consultations have been conducted for nearly half of theproposals ( per cent), with resulting information provided in half ofthose cases in the RIA statement ( per cent). Again, the proportionof consultations conducted for EU related legislation is roughly thesame. In the Czech Republic, out of RIAs have utilizedconsultation processes (thus in all cases where affected parties havebeen identified) and one proposal presented all the results in the RIAstatement.

Institutions and RIA performance

The foregoing analysis has revealed interesting cross-country differ-ences in RIA performance across the five ECE countries. How can one

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account for such differences and what role do institutions have in suchaccounts?

Estonia has a relatively good performance in RIA implementation.It scores highly on the quality of information regarding publicconsultations and predicted impacts, where it both identifies anddirectly consults affected parties and utilizes this information for RIA.It is also the only country of the five in which impacts other thanfiscal effects are discussed on a regular basis. When it comes to issuesaddressed by RIA, it scores highly on two areas: RIA statement andimplementation. Like in other countries, in Estonia options are notdiscussed, however, because formal guidelines do not ask for this.

These results reflect a number of factors. The Estonian StateChancellery performs an important role, despite the fact that it doesnot coordinate RIA implementation as such. Some issues, such aspurpose, implementation measures (which are not required by formalRIA rules), impacts other than financial, and consultations arechecked by the State Chancellery as part of overall strategic andadministrative efficiency monitoring. In addition, the Estonian StateChancellery initiated, prepared or oversaw the preparation of severalguidelines to assist civil servants in carrying out RIAs. For example,it composed the Code of Good Involvement Practice, based partlyon the Code of Practice on Consultation in the United Kingdom. TheState Chancellery also promoted this code through workshops forcivil servants organized by the Network of Estonian NonprofitOrganizations (Lepa et al ).

Furthermore, in , each ministry appointed an official in chargeof monitoring compliance with the Code of Good InvolvementPractice. Moreover, EU officers, who are direct liaison persons of theState Chancellery in the line ministries, assist and coordinate consul-tation processes for their particular ministry. Many ministries have alsodescribed consultation and involvement of stakeholders in ministerialdevelopment plans. In , the Estonian State Chancellery opened anofficial e-consultation portal www.osale.ee to facilitate publicconsultation. Moreover, the Ministry of Internal Affairs adopted aCivic Action Development Plan –, which aims to developstakeholder and interest-group involvement and public participationand dedicates funds to this purpose. Thus, there are certain spill-overeffects in having a strong executive oversight body that oversees theoverall strategic performance of line ministries and pushes for reformsin the policy-making process in spite of the fact that this centre is notspecifically dedicated to RIA performance.

The Czech Republic is an interesting case as there are only cases inwhich RIAs were actually performed in , nevertheless, of these

Staronová

http://www.osale.ee

were of very high quality: they identified and assessed options, withquantified costs and benefits, and included consultation processes. Whyis this the case? When one looks at the sponsors of these RIAs, five camefrom the Ministry of Interior, five from the Ministry of Information andTelecommunications and two from the Ministry of Finance. TheMinistry of Interior is the place where the original RIA coordinat-ing and oversight body from the Government Office under primeministerial supervision was moved to, along with its entire staff. TheMinistry of Information is the one where RIA was piloted and used forthe development of RIA methodology. Thus, they were the architects ofRIA in the Czech Republic. Nevertheless, other line ministries did nottake part in the pilot and do not have the adequate skills and capacitiesto conduct RIAs on their own. Moreover, with the shift of the bodyfrom the Government Office to the Ministry of Interior, the body lostpower to supervise and monitor other line ministries. As a result, otherministries simply ignored the elaboration of RIAs.

Slovakia and Slovenia

The implementation of RIA is very slow with low quality ofinformation in many parts of RIA statements, though coverage of fiscalimpacts, regulatory options or implementation is relatively better. Oneof the reasons for this state of affairs has been an absence of a moredetailed methodology on how to conduct RIA that would guide civilservants and decision makers with regard to the expectations from theRIA process. Steps have recently been taken in both countries toaddress the shortcomings of the RIA process, including development ofmethodologies and piloting RIA (Staronová – Pavel – Krapež, ).But such efforts are limited (one person unit at the Ministry ofEconomy in Slovakia and two person unit at the Ministry of PublicAdministration in Slovenia) and RIAs are largely ignored by the centreof government.

Pilot studies in both Slovakia and Slovenia did not bring the expectedresults due to several factors. First, they were not backed by adequatepolitical support and resources and, secondly, the department entrustedwith pilots was overburdened with other tasks than RIA. Consequently,the RIA pilot was restricted to one draft law in one ministry. Even thislimited learning experience was not utilized in further actions. Forexample, the methodologies developed were not adopted by the centreof government which has further weakened the role of RIA in boththese countries.

Hungary almost altogether ignores the preparation of RIAs. Fewregulatory issues are addressed and, if they are, they are introduced in


an ad hoc manner. These findings correspond to earlier findings on theHungarian practice from (Staronová et al. ). These reflect theweak influence of the Ministry of Justice and a political centre ofgovernment in the Prime Minister’s Office that neither acts as acoordinating centre for RIA nor supports the Ministry of Justice in itsefforts. Surprisingly, Hungary is very weak also in conducting fiscalimpact assessments where all the other countries have some results –we may assume that also the role of Ministry of Finance is relativelyweak in this sense.

Conclusion

This article has examined patterns of RIA institutionalization andperformance in five CEE countries. In doing so, it has examined howthe duration of the RIA regime, the availability of centralizedguidelines, and the presence of coordination and monitoring from thecentre of government have affected the patterns of RIA performance.

With regard to the first of these factors, when one looks at RIApioneers in CEE, i.e. Estonia and Hungary, one finds markeddifferences in RIA performance: Estonia has achieved a relativelyeffective model of RIA implementation, whilst Hungary lags behind innearly all aspects. Slovakia and Slovenia officially comply with RIAdeclarations, but the level of actual implementation is low (althoughSlovakia took some steps in towards a more efficient system). TheCzech Republic has long been a RIA laggard. The recent RIA systemshows a high quality, but with a very low number of assessmentscarried out. These findings cast some doubt whether the length ofexperience with RIA matters for performance.

RIA guidelines are important in setting the overall requirementsand standards. Of the five countries, only the Czech Republic clearlystated the requirement to consider options and thus only there didRIAs address this issue. On the other hand, if formal guidelines are toobrief and unclear and drafted by civil servants who lack properunderstanding of what is at stake, the requirements can be substandardor even misleading as was the case in Slovakia, where impacts onemployment were understood as impact on employment in publicadministration solely. Thus, clear formal guidelines are a goodprerequisite but without training or political support can merelyencourage ‘box ticking’.

The presence of strong central oversight has been found to matterfor RIA performance. The examples of Slovakia and Slovenia showthat absent a strong RIA oversight body, civil servants comply formally,

Staronová

but not substantively, with RIA requirements. The Czech andHungarian experiences suggest that placing the RIA oversight bodyhierarchically at the same level as other ministries weakens theirposition. They may have the skills and expertise, but not the power tocompel line ministries into change. The experiences of all of thecountries show that since responsibility for RIAs rests primarily withcivil servants actually working within the policy area concerned,capacities in line ministries matter crucially.

NOTES

. The construction of indicators follow the Impact Assessment dimensions of ‘process’, ‘activitiesand output’ and ‘real world outcome’, whereas the tests look at ‘contents’, ‘outcome’ and‘function’. These approaches are not necessarily mutually exclusive (Radaell, a).

. The data were collected from primary documents and interviews with civil servants andvalidated by contact persons in the respective countries.

. Government Resolution No. /. In the Czech Republic, the first attempt to implementImpact Assessment was connected with Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus, who tried to reduce theadministrative burden in the s. He created a so-called ‘Anti-bureaucratic Commission’. Itsmembers were politicians and high-ranking civil servants. Participation in the Commission wasvoluntary and the public administration was not obliged to co-operate and respect it. Theattempt was not systematic and did not succeed. Moreover, it discredited this idea for a longtime. See also Starnová, Pavel and Krapež ().

. The Czech Republic kept postponing the requirement of RIA, which did not come into effect until January, . In practice this meant that all the line ministries officially initiated draft proposalsin late in order to avoid the requirement of preparing RIAs. Thus, technically the civilservants as agents complied with the requirement of preparing RIA with draft proposals initiatedin but at the same time avoided the requirement by claiming that poposals brought to theCabinet in were initiated prior to the requirement of RIA statement coming into effect.

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KATARÍNA STARONOVÁ

Institute of Public Policy,Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences

Comenius University,Bratislava

Slovakia.e-mail: [email protected]

Staronová

mailto:[email protected]