Regulatory policy and trust in government

Speaking at a recent event organised by Salzburg Global and the Volcker Alliance on ‘Restoring the Public’s Trust: Delivering on Public Policy Goals’, the Secretary General of OECD, Mr Angel Gurria, listed the elements of a "strategy for trust" that OECD could recommend to national governments, built on three pillars: integrity, transparency and engagement. Mr Gurria defined the current situation as a crisis of trust, trust being "the cornerstone of effective governance, the main ingredient to promote economic growth and social progress. Like never before, our countries are running dry of this precious asset. Like never before, our citizens have doubts about their government’s capacities to make the right decisions. And like never before, we need to take the necessary measures to recover that confidence."
Regulatory policy could contribute significantly to improve transparency and restore trust in government, said Mr Gurria: "Our regulatory and supervisory structures have failed us in many important ways. This is resulting in a degradation of the idea of the State as that strong institutional framework that guaranteed our safety, our prosperity, our right to succeed, through a system of checks and balances inspired in a crucial principle: accountability. Our governments now need to make a major effort to restore this certainty and with it the respectability, the credibility, of the State. The OECD is supporting these efforts, with different tools: like our recently updated Principles on Regulatory Quality, the OECD Working Group on Bribery; the Annual High-Level Anticorruption Conference for G20 Governments and Business; and the CleanGovBiz Initiative, to name but a few."