Admin burden in EU: what next?

Last week the four European independent regulatory "watchdogs" in DK, NL, GE and UK have published an important joint paper entitled "The end of the Commission's action programme for reducing administrative burdens in the European Union - What comes next?"
These advisory bodies take the view that "in times of economic and financial crisis, political support for the EU is liable to decline. Transparent procedures and smart regulation are needed more than ever to drivecompetitiveness and support of the EU as a positive institution for growth.
They suggest that "the EU should continue to reinforce its programmes on smart regulation. As the Action Programme for reducing administrative burdens will end in 2012, a new programme needs to be developed to keep the momentum. Some progress has been made so far, but there is still quite a way to go. A change in the mindset, a cultural shift towards smart regulation as a basic prerequisite of proposed legislation has not yet been reached."
The paper draws lessons from the Smart Regulation agenda initiatives over the recent past: for admininistrative burdens, it notes the 31% reduction proposals from the Commission and recommends widening the scope of the programme to the overall regulatory burden; for impact assessments, it points at a number of "inconsistencies" of current efforts and suggests improvements in the consultation and quality check; to support progress, it recommends extending the mandate of the HLG of independent stakeholders ("Stoiber Group") to advise all three institutions on the full range of smart regulation issues.
For more see DG Enterprise and Industry site on smart regulation which includes a section on the Stoiber Group.

EU Council supports Commission SR proposals

Though devoted principally to economic governance and employment issues (see also statement of the heads of state and government), the European Council on 9 December restated its commitment to growth, in which smart regualtion, and particularly the reduction of administrative burdens, has a role to play.
The Council conclusions recalled key priorities for growth, identified in October 2011, "in particular, the Single Market Act, the Digital Single Market and the reduction of overall regulatory burden for SMEs and microenterprises," and called the legislator to fast-track the Commission's proposals. It also endorsed the actions proposed by the Commission in its report on minimising regulatory burdens for SMEs.
Regulatory impact assessment was also discussed at a 30 November ECOFIN council, in which member states "underlined the need for the Council to consider, where appropriate and necessary, the impact assessment of new legislative proposals on competitiveness and public finances without prejudging the importance of their social and environmental impacts."

6th progress report of public policies review (France)

Yesterday the Council of Ministers heard a report about progress of the general review of public policies (RGPP), the major initiative under way since 2007 to reform public administrations in France. Our interest will be in the list of measures taken under the general heading "improve the quality of public services." This programme includes structural reforms (such as the creation of one-stop-shops and reducing the number of departmental offices at the local level) and an impressive list of 100 simplification measures reducing red tape for citizens and businesses over three years. The emphasis is on electronic procedures, which now cover most of the most current benefits. Success of the programme is claimed from the results of regular satisfaction surveys ("perception of complexity") rather than measuring the reduction of burdens. Some of the simplifications require the amendment of legal clauses. Another major component of the RGPP is the reduction of public spending through staff reductions (150.000 positions suppressed over 5 years by not replacing one out of two staff on retirement) and increased productivity. The full report (300 pages) draws a complete picture of administrative reform, distinguishing cross-cutting issues and departmental reforms. It also reads as the final report of this goverment's modernisation plans for the public sector, in the run-up to the elections in the first part of 2012.

Common commencement dates launched in France

As mentioned before on this blog, the French government has set up a tool to help businesses cope with the regular flow of new legislation by making sure that they have at least 2 months to become aware of the new norms and adapt if need be, and by reducing the number of commencement dates in the year.
Full explanations of the scheme are online in a new rubric on the governement's legal portal Legifrance.
A first table offering a summary of the new legislation, by commencement date, has also been published online, with a legal disclaimer.

Open consultation now operational (France)

As reported in a previous post, the 5th simplification law adopted in May 2011 introduced the possibility for administrations to replace a legally obligatory consultation of a standing advisory body by an "open consultation" using the internet, prior to finalising new legislation (article 16 of the law dated 17 May 2011). The implementation text (décret) has now been adopted (dated 8 December). It specifies that the reform applies from 1 January 2012 and provides for a centralised publicity for such consultations. Not mentioned in the aforementioned previous post: by law, the minimum duration of an open consultation is 15 days. A good comment by a French expert highlights the wordy by poor content of the text which does not promote a culture of consultation but only organises it legally.

Red Tape closely associated to corruption (Philippines)

According to news from the Philippines published yesterday, the struggle against red tape, closely linked to fighting corruption, is active though according to the Doing Business index, the country is still losing ground at 136/183, a region where it has been stuck since the beginnings of the ranking.
A press report yesterday gives some details about how the government combats bureaucracy, on the legal basis provided by the Anti-Red Tape Act (Arta) of 2007: among other tools, the Civil service commission conducts a Arta Report Card Survey at regional level (RCS) to gather feedback on how agencies, including local government units, follow provisions of their Citizen’s Charters. The RCS also rates the agencies performance and clients’ satisfaction in relation to frontline service delivery. Results of the survey may be used by the agencies in improving or modifying their frontline services and Citizens Charter.
The Philippine Public Transparency Reporting Project (a Human Rights group) gives some background about the main item of legislation (Arta), which was introduced in 2007 in an attempt to make government services more business-friendly and help stamp out corruption. One of its most salient provisions is to automatically grant requests for renewal of licenses, permits and authorization should a government office fail to act within a prescribed period. The Anti- Red Tape Act was in fact only the latest in a long line of attempts to address inefficiencies and corruption in government services in the Philippines. They included the "People First, Not Later" program in 1994 which encouraged a client who is dissatisfied with the service of a government office to file a complaint at the Civil Service Commission. The Commission was supposed to ensure immediate action is taken to investigate and resolve the complaint. The “People First” campaign was later reinforced through the program TEXTCSC where citizens were invited to report irregularities and allegations of corruption in public service to the CSC simply by texting 0917-TEXTCSC. Transparency Reporting describes in detail how the "fixer" system works (fascinating), and concludes: "More than a decade after these programs were launched, the general public sentiment is that the quality of government service has improved very little if not actually worsened." For other measures in PH, see posts dated 11 September and 19 August.

Delivery: the new challenge for smart regulators?

Not really but there is news on the topic.  The new term ("delivery") is being brought in to focus the issue of "enforcement and compliance of regulation" on outcomes, especially in the business world. Regulation is perceived as a service authorities deliver to society. Local Better Regulation Office (LBRO) members posted on the Smart Regulation LinkedIn group news of the publication of an interesting report by the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) on "Delivering Better Regulation." This report, well worth reading, summarizes the responses to a consultation on the future of the LBRO, especially in relation to its transfer into BIS, "to make greater use of its experience and expertise as part of the core policy-making of the Department."

The UK experience with LBRO was quite unique in providing this delivery and service role for regulation, which will be preserved in the new structure.

Among the comments received on LinkedIn: Oscar F. reminds us that "NNR ( www.nnr.se  ) presented a study on the need for Better Regulation on the local level in Sweden a few months ago. Next step towards Better/Smarter Regulation needs to focus more attention to regulations on local level as well as the use of "Goldplating " within the EU."

Smart Regulation in its EU version equally places emphasis on the full cycle of regulation, including implementation, and emphasises the transposition and application of EU law.

OECD did some gathering of good practices some years back: chapter 5 of "Regulatory policies in OECD countries" (2002) defines "tools to improve implementation of regulations." (only on a WB site.) More recently, it included an indicator in Government at a glance 2011, (see page 162 indicator "preparing for effective compliance and enforcement of regulations) which contains an interesting table showing which member states have an enforcement policy.) Now a new stream of projects on enforcement and compliance has been launched.

The World Bank, in keeping with its development of business approach, focuses on modernising and making more effective inspections. A kind of manual is offered by "How to reform business inspections: design, implementation, challenges" (main author Florentin Blanc, see his March 2011 ppt for an introduction.)