The way forward, viewed from the top (OECD Forum)

(Photo above: Pres. Hollande from France addresses Forum). 

The second day of the 2015 OECD Forum (3 June) had been organised back-to-back with the OECD Ministerial Council Meeting, which saves travel costs and allows delegates to engage high ranking decision makers. As on the first day, the event also offered rich opportunities to explore current trends and network in a variety of attractive formats (i. a. "meet-the-author", "idea factories", "talk together,"  project presentations). Regarding the plenary sessions, the morning slots were devoted to the presentation and discussion of resources compiled and calculated by OECD, chiefly the 2015 economic outlook. These new elements fed into a discussion on structural reforms, which tried to identify the main factors for stimulating investment while pursuing  sustainable and inclusive growth objectives. The second morning session addressed investment in human capital: its conclusions were consensual but predictable (education...) in spite of the efforts of the moderator.

The highlight of the day was naturally the session on Unlocking Growth, with President Hollande (France) and PM Rutte (the Netherlands) taking centre stage, with questions from ministers in a discussion moderated by SG Gurria himself. Both orators were brilliant in combining the competing requirements of sustainability, environment preservation and social inclusiveness in investment policies. Solutions needed to be defined in common (at the European level for countries of that region), and other international fora such as the coming Paris conference on climate change (COP21).

NL purple crocodile program

On 25 April 2013, the Dutch Watchdog on administrative burden (ACTAL) launched its agenda for 2013: ‘Towards tangible less regulatory pressure.’ ACTAL has organised a seminar to celebrate the event at Pulchri Studio the Hague. During the seminar a book containing essays on the quest to reduce regulatory red tape and methods to make regulation more effective will be presented to the Dutch Minister of the Interior, Mr. Plasterk. For more, see http://www.actal.nl/english/about-actal/
A ‘purple Crocodile’ has become the Dutch ‘Logo’ for the phenomenon of red tape and regulatory burden. The idea was taken from a TV-add (2010/2011) in which a parent – with child in hand – asks a swimming pool clerk seated behind a glass walled counter whether the purple crocodile (a swimming pool toy) his son lost that day is found. Although the purple crocodile is in plain view, and the child is pointing at it feverishly, the clerk refuses to take a look behind his back and tells the parent in an icy voice to fill out and file a lost and found form…. (from http://www.ial-online.org/)

NL ACTAL releases 2012 report on administrative burdens

(Official announcement) "2012 was Actal’s first full year in its new role. In the Regulatory Burden Audit, we assessed if and to what extent ministries have taken the regulatory burden effects into account properly and consistently in preparing new policy. We also issued ex ante opinions on planned legislation on the consequences of regulatory burden proposing less burdensome alternatives within the bills assessed. Signals from society also lead to various advices to tackle the regulatory burden in existing legislation. We believe our activities of last year can contribute to less regulatory burden for businesses, citizens and professionals, making more commitment possible. Our digital Annual Report 2012: Less regulatory burden, more commitment. gives an overview of all our activities and the most important developments of last year."

New Dutch methodology to reduce regulatory costs

Delegates to the twice yearly meeting of (European) Directors and Experts of Better Regulation (DEBR) in Dublin (22-23 November) were informed about recent research and testing of a new methodology to remove or lower obstacles to business innovation and growth by way of further reductions in the regulatory burdens. A Cost-driven Approach to Regulatory Burdens (CAR) offers a change of perspective by taking as a starting point the actual costs incurred in companies to comply with regulation, irrespective of which legislation is at the origin of the cost. The new methodology, developed by SIRA Consulting in the Netherlands, a company to which we already owe the widely applied SCM, is being tested on two pilot studies (chemical industries and European bakeries) and is expected to be finalised during 2013. It seeks to correct some of the limitations of the Standard Cost Model. Delegates were impressed by the conceptual shift underway, but expressed concern that the new method may be expensive and/or difficult to implement. This contribution enriches the discussion started earlier this year by a key paper from Germany: Guidelines on the Identification and Presentation of Compliance Costs in Legislative Proposals by the Federal Government, which also aims to address the full range of regulatory costs.

New directions for SCM (compliance costs)

OECD has announced an important workshop, which will be held on 11-12 June in Berlin, hosted by the German Federal Chancellery and the National Regulatory Control Council. The event aims to share approaches and techniques for measuring compliance costs and to identify strategies for cutting regulatory costs that contribute to re-boosting growth and to delivering improved welfare outcomes. The workshop will enable the exchange of experience and good practices and focus both on the technical challenges in measuring compliance costs and benefits of regulations, and on the political challenges in reducing costs to stimulate growth and maximise welfare outcomes. This workshop is part of the programme on Measuring Regulatory Performance.
On the workshop page are posted a number of interesting documents, some not published elsewhere on the net, starting with the key paper from Germany: Guidelines on the Identification and Presentation of Compliance Costs in Legislative Proposals by the Federal Government.
As background to the techniques which will be discussed in Berlin, see a joint presentation between Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden at a similar event last year in Poland.

Ukraine needs to reform inspections (IFC)

A study by IFC published last week found that the system of permits, inspections, and technical regulations in Ukraine remains a burden for businesses, costing them nearly $900 million last year and hampering their efforts to grow and create jobs.
The IFC study, “Investment Climate in Ukraine as Seen by Private Businesses 2011,” surveyed approximately 2,000 businesses and found that 46 percent of them resorted to unofficial means to resolve issues with state officials. Ukrainian companies surveyed spent an average of 10 percent of company revenue in 2010 to comply with official regulations.
“Less regulation and a transparent economic environment will help promote growth and enable Ukrainian businesses to attract more investments,” said Elena Voloshina, IFC Head of Operations for Ukraine. “Ukraine has made some positive steps forward to ease the regulatory burden for private businesses over the past year. However, poor implementation and the slow pace of reforms remain among the key barriers to private sector growth.”
Since 2009, Ukraine has made some progress, particularly in the reform of technical regulations. However, the IFC study found that local entrepreneurs have not fully benefitted from the regulatory changes due to the low level of implementation, which significantly undermines the reform process.
The study also recommended steps to improve the investment climate. These steps include decreasing the number of permits and the number of businesses subject to licensing; extending the scope for self-certification; enforcing the use of inspections checklists; and streamlining norms and requirements.
IFC’s Ukraine Investment Climate Advisory Services Project is supported by the Canadian International Development Agency; the Dutch Agency for International Business and Cooperation; the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency; and Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, SECO.

New One Stop Shop in Yerevan

Network friend Arsen Nazaryan informs us of the recent launch in Yerevan (Armenia) of a One Stop Shop for business registration, "which will ease business entry, reduce administrative burden on businesses, and boost economic growth." The project is supported by the IFC's Armenia Regulatory Simplification – Doing Business Reform Project, in partnership with Austrian, Dutch and other donor agencies.
The high level interest for regulatory reform was also highlighted by news of a meeting organised by OSCE for the Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan, with Scott Jacobs, a leading expert in regulatory reform who presented the global experience in the field of regulatory reform and the opportunities for implementation of such reforms in Armenia. According to a report on the governement website, Scott Jacobs hailed progress achieved by Armenia in improving the regulatory environment for business, making this country a regional leader in this area.

New Dutch red tape reduction programme

As announced by this blog at the end of January, a new policy has been announced by the Governement of the Netherlands, the leader in cutting red tape and originator of the SCM (standard cost model). The translation into English is now official, but not yet online. This blog has been sent the full text, which cannot be copied here, but here is one of the key paragraphs of the announcement.
The Government coalition agreement establishes a quantitative objective for reducing the administrative burden for businesses: a 10% reduction in net costs to 2012 and a 5% reduction in costs for subsequent years.
Regulatory burden is about more than just the administrative burden. The Businesses' Regulatory Burdens Commission is clear: businesses also see compliance costs, poor service on the part of the government and supervisory costs as 'regulatory costs'. The Programme does not therefore solely deal with the administrative burden. The Government wants to bring about a reduction in the regulatory burden experienced by the business sector. Therefore also qualitative reduction measure will be taken.
The approach to achieving these goals can be divided into four overlapping and complementary components:
A. quantitative targets;
B. preventing new regulatory burden;
C. improving services;
D. trust and supervision. (end of quote)
Experts will want to examine each word and sentence of this text which is rich in innovations to be clarified in coming weeks. Readers will be informed as soon as the full text is uploaded on an official NL site.

NL cabinet defines new BR strategy

We are informed that the Dutch government has tabled today in Parliament a White Paper on Regulatory Policy 2010-2015 (info from JN). No announcement yet in English on the web. The new policy will give more importance to RIA.

Admin burdens on citizens

I have recently discovered another website on our regulatory issues, with a catchy name “What A Relief!” The site comprises some resources (9 documents), but nothing very recent.

Who is behind this? Quote from the site:  ‘Under the umbrella of the European Public Administration Network, a Learning Team on reducing administrative burdens for citizens was established. During four meetings in 2008, the participants of the Learning team will work together intensively, to learn more about the national approaches and methodologies to measure and to reduce administrative burdens for citizens and to improve public service delivery. More than 20 countries are participating in this learning team and it has already produced some interesting results (see also publications).

To strengthen the cooperation between the participants of both the “What a relief!” seminar and the EUPAN Learning Team it was decided to set up a common website. This website will serve to exchange news, results, best practices, manuals and other publications on improving public service delivery with less administrative burdens for citizens. The website is sponsored and hosted by the Dutch Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations.”

A nice initiative, a pity it is not maintained.

This group advertises a 3 day seminar on 3-5 November in Utrecht, seemingly reserved to invited persons.

Red tape reduction boosted by Warsaw meeting

The Standard Cost Model network is currently the best forum for EU member states (and a few neighbours) to exchange views and information about administrative costs. The network met in Warsaw on 5 March and from discussions and presentations, I drew some new insights worth sharing:
- the host-country, Poland, gave an in-depth presentation of the current SCM operations in their administrations, within the wider framework of better regulation (called "Regulatory Reform" in Poland). All the usual components of a BR strategy are present, and the business orientation will be strengthened by a draft "deregulation statute" (which is close to approval) aimed at limiting administrative control over the setting up of companies, and simplifying the related procedures;
- the UK presented in detail results and lessons learnt from their"benefits of regulation" project, an outline of which is given on the SCM site;
- there was a presentation of current trends in the European Commission, "first steps towards smart European regulation";
- André Nijsen, a consultant from the Netherlands, who had made a noted presentation at the Bertelsman 2009 conference "perspective on the SCM", gave an outline of a technical report comparing national variants of the original Dutch SCM. I was impressed by the scope and quality of the analysis, and agreed with most if not all the suggestions to align concepts and methods, in order to tackle efficiently burdens in a growing number of situations. (CH MONTIN)