Better Regulation still needs to convince Health stakeholders

Health community representatives seem far from convinced by the EC's Better Regulation policy, if those who spoke at the EPHA conference last week are to be believed.

Ms Christina Colclough, from UNI Europa (trade union for private employees) told how "disappointed" her organisation was with BR for not tackling the main challenges to Europe, including that of raising social standards.

Ms Magda Stoczkiewicz, director of Friends of the Earth, regretted that an excessive focus on administrative burdens, instead of the benefits of legislation, which made the EC's agenda look like a Business Europe position.

Ms Florence Berteletti, director of Smokefree Partnership, reminded the audience that industry lobbies were behind the adoption of RIA, a thesis researched by Dr Katherine Smith, in a report launched in the European Parliament in 2010 (see blog post).

On the other hand DG Santé representative and your blogger were given the time to defend a more positive reading of the recent Commission BR package, and Ms Tamsin Rose (Friends of Europe think-tank), pointed out that BR should reduce the irrationality of policy-making. 

Moderator Nina Renshaw, secretary general of EPHA, was able to wrap-up with some forward-looking conclusions:

- BR and RIA were an opportunity that the Health stakeholders should embrace and make heard the voice of their communities in the policy-making process at EU level. 

- the cost of doing nothing option should always be assessed (such as the cost of doing nothing to provide health care to migrants)

- BR should be used to increase the accountability of politicians when pursuing policies not supported by evidence.

See also post on calling the conference (below).

Smart Regulation back on track (EU)

Must-read for all smart regulators: the Competitiveness Council Conclusions on Smart Regulation, 2-3 December 2014.

Progress made by the Commission in the development of each of the tools of better regulation is reviewed. Special attention should be given to paragraphs concerning REFIT (see June Communication), ex-post evaluation, the SME dimension.

A summary of what is new can be found in a press release from one of the major stakeholders at EU level.

"EUROCHAMBRES particularly welcomes the following elements, which it has repeatedly advocated for many years:

• Clear support for a rigorous application of the Think Small First principle across smart regulation tools, including the use of the SME test in impact assessments (IA);
• Strong commitment to examine and debate all Commission IAs for legislative proposals and to send back an IA to the Commission if there are serious concerns about its quality;
• Request to the Commission to enhance the IA process by bringing in external, independent expertise, in a systematic and transparent way and to ensure early involvement of stakeholders and member states" (see press release 4 Dec.)

Bulgarian businessmen list BR priorities

At a press conference on 31 January of representatives of national employers' associations, the Chair of the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry listed key obstructions faced by businesses, including red tape, constantly changing laws and limited access to funding. He emphasized that the Bulgarian President had not carried out his promise made upon assuming office to veto any law which had reached the stage of parliamentary debates without an impact assessment. He added that Bulgarian laws required a "repeat impact assessment" every six months, which had not happened so far.

Other priorities to improve the regulatory environment for business include harmonising tariffs for issuing permits across municpalities, reduction and simplification of the regulatory burden, the mandatory preparation of impact assessment of all laws and progress in the adoption of e-government.

Canada's 5th annual Red Tape Awareness Week

According to a press release taken up by several media, the 5th edition of Canada's Red Tape Awareness Week™ (from 27 January) will continue to demonstrate " how real the red tape burden is for business owners and ordinary Canadians, and where we are in the effort to reduce that burden. " From a report card that grades individual governments on their own red tape reduction efforts to recognizing leadership that has made a difference in cutting it, the event will be worth following. See also this blog's post on last year's edition.

Conference on better lawmaking in Europe 30 January

Eurochambres, the European association of chambers of commerce and industry, announces an interesting conference to be held in Brussels on 30 January in the European Parliament: "What next for Better Law-Making in Europe."

For an update on the issues, see a recent article by EU Issue Tracker.

FR business organisation suggests new targets for red tape

How does French business view the UK "Cutting EU red tape" report? The president of MEDEF (employers' confederation) was recently commenting on the British report drafted by an independent business panel. This was an opportunity for this text to be made known in France.

President Gattaz recalled that simplification was one of the main commitments of his organisation's programme of work and said that what was required was a new mindset in the legislative and regulatory process. He was very interested in the methodology developed by the British to drive the internal process of simplification ("one in, two out"); simplification, to be successful, must be sought according to a rigorous methodology. To do this, MEDEF would propose to the French government and parliamentary concrete objectives: 

- reduce the stock of regulation by 5% a year, especially in the labor law, taxation, environment, urban planning, 

- improve the quality of new legislation, avoid frequent changes. 

For more, see links to the report and summary and recent critical comment, in previous posts. Source of this post: Enjeux.

UK report on EU red tape "not well-researched"

An interesting reaction to the recent business panel report (see previous post) of the of the was published today (4 Nov.) by A. Ackroyd, a labour and employment law expert on Lexology:

(excerpt) "...you might expect the report to include well-evidenced conclusions of how silly Brussels-driven bent-banana regulations are putting businesses to disproportionate expense, whilst failing to meet their intended objectives. Unfortunately, if you were expecting this, you will be disappointed (though if you have read any of the other rationales prepared by the Government over the last three years for cutting employment red tape, probably not surprised). 

The Foreword to the report proudly announces that its conclusions are based on “input from hundreds of firms, individuals and business associations across Europe”. However, by the Executive Summary (a mere three pages later) the extent of the report’s sources is drastically reduced to “some 90 UK businesses and business organisations, and over 20 business organisations across Europe” (my guess is 21). 

Not only is the extent of its research questionable, but the report’s eight recommendations to reduce employment regulations also appear to be no more than wish-lists from anonymous sources. Typical of this is the recommendation that small, low risk businesses should not be required to keep written health and safety risk assessments. This recommendation is based on a quotation attributed to “a small business organisation” (your local corner shop, perhaps) suggesting that “Removing the requirement to write down risk assessments could save businesses across Europe 2.7 billion euros”. (end of quote). Well worth reading the full article.

Culture change for regulators (Australia)

The Australian Productivity Commission release a research report earlier this month on "Regulator Engagement with Small Business" according to which "Regulators can do more to reduce the compliance and enforcement burdens they impose on small businesses. The Commission argues that regulators should ensure they understand how regulation impacts on small business and keep the compliance capacity of small businesses at the forefront of their minds." A regulator's culture and attitude towards business should include the following improvements:

• Regulators should adopt a multi-channel approach to communicating with small businesses with a focus on the brevity, clarity and accessibility of information. 
• Compliance and enforcement strategies should be proportionate to risks posed to communities and facilitate voluntary compliance. 
• Regulators should commit publicly to target timeframes for key processes, report on their performance in meeting targets, and consider other measures to improve timeliness. 
• Regulators should have access to a sufficient range of enforcement tools and be resourced to do their job effectively, to avoid the shifting of direct and indirect costs onto businesses.

New "Accountability for Regulator Impact scheme" (UK)

On 24 July, the UK government announced a new scheme to give businesses a stronger voice in influencing how regulators change the way they work, chiefly by improving the RIA process.

Under the new Accountability for Regulator Impact scheme non-economic regulators that are planning a significant change in policy or practice – for example, by updating guidance or inspection regimes - will assess and quantify the impact of that change on business. 

They will then share and discuss these assessments with trade associations and other business representatives before carrying out the proposed changes.

The measure is part of the government's drive to make sure the enforcement of regulation places minimum burdens on industry while delivering essential protections and creating a level playing field on which companies can compete fairly. 

This new initiative is part of the UK government's programme to make the enforcement of regulation less burdensome, along with the a 'growth duty' – a proposed statutory duty for regulators to consider the impact of their activities on growth - and a revised Regulators' Compliance Code.

Bangladesh Gvt reluctant to adopt regulatory reform

Bangladesh does not rank well in the Doing Business index: 129th out of 185 economies, falling. Experts agree on the causes of this poor performnance: "lack of regulatory reforms, bureaucratic bottlenecks, infrastructure deficit, pervasive corruption and confrontational politics" according to an editorial in the B. Financial Express. A recent parliamentary initiative to create a "business caucus" to support reform, following the publication of a book suggesting to 'build partnership between parliamentarians and the private sector to modernise and update regulatory mechanism in Bangladesh' is not well received. 'The commerce minister does not agree'. For a long-winded explanation of this double-bind, which is at the root of the problem (no clear picture in the minds of the people in charge), try the Financial Express article dated 4 March.

Business orgs benchmark Smart Regulation

The OECD has invited BIAC (the Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD) to co-operate in a benchmarking project aimed at ensuring that the OECD’s 2012 Recommendation of the Council on Regulatory Policy and Governance is implemented as soon as possible in the member countries. "To increase the quality of the OECD’s assessment of the Recommendation’s implementation, the OECD project team wishes to involve national business organisations in the analysis and quality assessment of the answers that governments give to the planned annual survey. The project is a great opportunity for business organisations to communicate if governments have truly implemented the Recommendation not just in theory but also in practice. It is the first time that the OECD undertakes a quality proofing of member countries’ performance through expert assessments of results by business organisations instead of solely relying on information provided by the individual governments." (for more, see announcement on BIAC site).

4th annual Red Tape Awareness week (Canada)

Among sub-national governments giving priority to supporting business, British Columbia (BC) has a long-standing excellent performance, as illustrated recently by two events:

• the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) organises every year a Red Tape Awareness week (semaine de sensibilisation à la paperasserie), which took place this year from 21 to 25 January 2013. The CFIB webpage lists a few other successful initiatives, including international comparisons and "Real Examples of Ridiculous Government Rules."
• as reported on 24 January by the Vancouver Sun, BC has the highest ranking in Canada for cutting red tape. Authorities have a legal requirement to publish annual reports about regulatory reform. Official figures show "a reduction of regulatory requirements by more than 42 per cent since 2001 - that's more than 155,000 off the books. We've also committed to a net-zero increase in regulatory requirements through to 2015". See also, in that same article, the New West Partnership commercial vehicle website launched in June 2012 by three provinces (BC, Alberta and Saskatchewan), offering a single website for the trucking industry to access information on permits, routes and other commercial vehicle information.

"Like-minded" MS call for strong Smart Regulation Action Plan

Last week, in a landmark letter to President Barroso, the ministers in charge of economic affairs of 13 Member States called on the European Commission to inter alia "go beyond looking at administrative burdens (also including compliance costs; consider sectoral targets... and produce a roadmap to reduce the overall regulatory burden over the next 2 years." The letter also calls to publish an annual statement of the total net costs to business of new legislative proposals and maintain an annual balance of close to zero net costs. The rest of the 10 Point Plan addresses other dimensions of smart regulation (RIA, the Impact Assessment Board, the Think Small First principle, fitness checks, and common commencement dates.)
For positions agreed by all 27 MS, the best source is the regular Council conclusions (see for instance June 2012 Conclusions under Danish presidency) which are of course more consensual.
It is not rare that a group of MS publish a joint position on the development of smart regulation, see for instance the report "Smart Regulation: a cleaner, fairer and more competitive EU" issued by the UK, The Netherlands and Denmark in March 2010, but up to now, this group had not got so close to a majority of MS.
This new joint letter intervenes at a moment when the European Commission is finalising its Communication on "EU Regulatory Fitness", to be published on 12 December, two years after the issuance of its Communication on "Smart Regulation in the EU." In the past months, the Commission has been taking stock of the progress made and drawing lessons from its experience. A stakeholder consultation was open from June to September to collect views and proposals to inform the next communication. The Commission website publishes the consultation document and all 118 contributions received, among which those of European Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Eurochambres) and Businesss Europe. Both organisations strongly support the smart regulation process encompassing the entire policy cycle and in slightly different ways, their contributions both offer much technical expertise.

New directions for Smart Regulation (EU)

Experts on SR will be interested in a joint position paper published last Friday by the 5 European independent advisory boards (CZ, DK, NL, SI and UK) for cutting red tape and better regulation, in response to the Commission's consultation document on Smart Regulation. 

According to their press release, the boards "believe 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 in order to keep the achievements already made as well as to strive for further improvements. A new programme on smart regulation which includes an ambitious aim to reduce the overall regulatory burden should be launched in 2013. In our common position paper we highlight the following priorities:

• Carrying out impact assessments for every new regulatory proposal
• Improving the informative value of roadmaps
• Making the Commission´s Impact Assessment Board more independent
• Systematic ex post-evaluations from the end users perspective
• Strengthening the role of the High Level Group
• Consulting the public. (end of quote)."

Under these headings, the report makes some interesting practical proposals.

Report on gold-plating (Sweden)

Yesterday, the Swedish Better Regulation Council and the Board of Swedish Industry and Commerce for Better Regulation presented a joint report on "gold-plating". "Better Regulation = no gold-plating ?" asks Oscar Fredriksson on our sister page on LinkedIn SR group, asking us to respond to the discussion.
For the moment, the report is in Swedish only, but it may soon be published in English. On the Board's website, there is already some good material on the issue, see for instance "Smart approach to the single market " (Feb 2012). The annual reports of the Swedish BR Council are also very interesting.

Cutting red tape in Colombia

Having just spent one week in Bogota as a guest of the Colombian government (Planning Department), your blogger is in a position to complete and update the previous post on regulatory reform in Colombia.
The most important initiative is the decreto-ley anti-tramites,a red tape cutting and legal simplification exercise based on a delegation from Parliament to the president (Mr Santos) to take all steps required to repeal "burdensome or unnecessary" procedures during a six-month period ending in January 2012. A more complete description of its content is available on the Legislative Observer site, with most significant measures described on Urna de Cristal. This "'omnibus" streamlined many procedures, gave legal status to certain electronic records (like company accounts) and modernised many procedures, like replacing fingerprint ID by official documentation.
A public consultation on further steps is also under way where citizens are invited to "denounce" a time consuming or uselfess administrative procedure, under the banner of "Anti-Red-Tape Crusade". The site reports that 70,000 citizens have already contributed. Most popular demands: the deletion of certification of documents, especially the three-monhly declaration of existence (to prove you are not dead) or the authentication by notary of each sheet of company accounts.
Another channel, more specifically designed for business, is the Competitive Regulation program, which comprises an online questionnaire but also a schedule of regional roundtables by sector, set up by the ministry of industry, trade and tourism in partnership with private actors.
For the same stakeholders, the Confederation of Chambers of Commerce has set up a network of well endowed one-stop-shops for registering a new business or formalising an existing one, with offices throughout the country where new entrepreneurs can receive legal help and carry out all the related procedures.
Finally, under development, a single online database of all administrative procedures (SUIT) already helps citizens, business and public officials (each has a separate access module) find relevant legislation. The site contains the official forms as well as information on completing the requirements to secure an ID document, a passport, a driving licence, etc.

Australian Company Directors call for deregulation

The Australian Institute of Company Directors (a business lobby) has just released a 76-page ''working paper'', titled Business Deregulation: A call to action, along with a ''discussion document'', media release and a request for 'stakeholders' to lodge a submission on the topic.
One of the questions asked in the discussion document is: ''Are you aware of Australian regulations which are redundant, poorly designed or excessive?''
The AICD's initiative comes after the Productivity Commission released a full report last December on Identifying and Evaluating Regulation Reforms and published numerous reports over the past five years on reducing the burden of unnecessary legislation.

Spain scores in AB reduction

Network friend Ignacio Gafo, leader of the Spanish AB project, informs us of impressive recent results, summarized in an official Report of CEOE.
Efforts have focused on the Integrated Environmental Permits (IPCC Directive) which is possibly the most complex procedure existing in Spain and in which the four levels of Government (EU, national, regional, local), are involved. The Confederation of Employers' proposals, that have been very favourably received by the Spanish Government, are expected to yield not only a significant reduction of administrative burdens to companies, but also promote a "philosophy" (Convergencia Voluntaria de Legislaciones y Procedimientos Autonómicos) which make a bid to reduce the legislative and practical fragmentation of the Spanish interior market. Thank you Ignacio.
 

Announcement: Stakeholder.eu 2nd edition

Smart regulation experts wishing to keep track of colleagues in Brussels, as well as correspondents in the stakeholder community will be interested in the publication of the second edition of Stakeholder.eu – The Directory for Brussels 2012, by former MEP and networking specialist Frank Schwalba-Hoth.
As indicated by the publishers, « it is estimated that some 15% of the Brussels stakeholders move from year to year. Keeping pace with these shifts is an everyday challenge. In order to work in Brussels, you do not need to know everyone – but you do need to know the stakeholders in your area of interest and activity. » A must-have for all those dealing professionally with the EU.

European small business against exemptions

A difficult topic for us Smart Regulation experts is how widely should we use exemptions to ensure the best possible effects to regulation. That is the question posed by the European Commission's proposals in November 2011 to alleviate the regulatory burden on SMEs, and already discussed on this blog, when the ACCA (Chartered Accountants) published its position paper recommending that ""Smart regulators must be able to tell regulatory burdens from regulatory capital."
Now the European Association of Craft, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (EUAPME), a leading stakeholder organisation in Brussels, has also come out against the EC policy, explaining in a Position Paper issued 27 January why "exempting micro enterprises from EU legislation is not an option." While they welcome the recognition that compliance with regulation is more burdensome for small companies, UEAPME believe that "Standards and regulations which are related to the quality aspects of enterprises, their products and their services must also be respected by smaller enterprises, if they want to be successful and remain competitive on the market, even locally."