better regulation richard gregg defra delivery transformation programme manager
TRANSCRIPT
Better Regulation
Richard Gregg
Defra Delivery Transformation
Programme Manager
Overview – Policy Objectives
Defra’s central purpose is to secure a healthy environment in which we and future generations prosper.
Several Departmental Strategic Objectives support this including:
• A thriving farming and food sector with an improving net environmental impact;
• A sustainable, secure and healthy food supply;
• An economy and a society that are resilient to environmental risk;
• Supporting strong rural communities;
• A respected department delivering efficient and high quality services and outcomes.
Purpose of Regulation
To deliver policy outcomes (economic, social and environmental) by changing the behaviours of individuals and business
• By moderating how things are done• By stopping some things happening• By encouraging people to do things they would not
normally do
Environment Agency
Core Department
Central Science
LaboratoryVeterinary
Labs Authority
Centre for Environment Fisheries and Aquaculture Science
Advisory NDPBs
Marine & Fisheries Agency
Natural England
Kew
Other Executive NDPBs
Levy Boards
Covent Garden Market Authority
Forestry Commission
(Non ministerial Department)
National Parks Authorities
WRAP +
others
Executive Agencies Non Departmental Public Bodies
Public Corporations
Others (larger ones named)
The Defra NetworkIncreasing degree of independence
British Waterways
Rural Payments
Agency Government Decontamination Service
Animal Health
Agricultural Wages Board | Agricultural Wages Committee | Commission for Rural Communities | Consumer Council for Water | Food From Britain | GangmastersLicensing Authority | Joint Nature Conservation Committee | National Forest Company |
Agriculture & Horticulture Development Board | Sea Fish Industry Authority
Veterinary Medicines
DirectorateRegulatory Science Agency
Local Authorities
(LACORS & LBRO)
Business Link
(Solutions for
Business + Farm
& Environment Themes)
Direct Gov
(Act on CO2, etc)
Seen from the point of view of a farmer
A typical farmer (300ha mixed farm, 140 suckler cows and finishing 500 head/year with 2 employees) interacts with at least 18 agencies including:
Animal Health
Local authorities
RPA/RLR
RSPCA
Defra
Environment Agency
Revenue & Customs
Water Companies and so on
It all looks complex and burdensome
Inspection Regimes Other Agricultural Regulations
Single Payment Scheme -Trading Standards
-RPA -Food Standards Agency
-Environment Agency -Farm Assurance Schemes
-Animal Health -Environment Agency
-Natural England -Water Companies
-VMD
Other areas Employment
-Revenue and Customs -Health and Safety Executive
-Police -Inland Revenue
-Local Authority Planners
Plus form filling, guidance to read, and regulation to understand and comply with
Better regulation?
• Understanding customer behaviour• Being clear about outcomes (what, by when)• Finding the best form of intervention – biggest benefit at
lowest cost to business and taxpayer• Continually evaluating effectiveness• Reducing burdens (regulation and monitoring)• Joining up processes
Partnerships
•Better Regulation Executive•Policy and delivery – Defra Network•Central and local government•Between Departments•With private and voluntary sectors•With business and the citizen
Impact Assessments
• Creating a story• Capturing insight and accumulating evidence• Estimating costs and benefits• Exploring options• Consultation and challenge• Obtaining agreement
Regulating Small Firms
• Enterprise Strategy commitment to look for different approaches to regulating small firms, eg different thresholds, inspection approaches or exemptions for firms with fewer than 20 employees
• Explanation of approach (non-prescriptive) in Explanatory notes/memorandum from 1 October 2008 for secondary legislation and 09/10 for primary legislation
Code of Practice on Good Guidance Guidance should be:• Based on a good understanding of users • Designed with input from users and their representative bodies • Organised around the user’s way of working • Easy for the target users to understand • Designed to provide an appropriate understanding of how to
comply with the law • Issued in good time • Easy to access via Businesslink • Reviewed and improved
Statutory Compliance CodeIt sets out seven elements that regulators, including local
authorities, should follow when discharging their regulatory functions:
• Supporting economic progress - Regulatory activity should allow, or even encourage, economic progress. Intervention only where there is a clear case for protection.
• Risk assessment - Undertaking a risk assessment of all their activities.
• Information and advice - Providing information and advice in a way that enables businesses to clearly understand what is required by law.
Compliance Code
• Inspections - Only performing inspections following a risk assessment, resources focused on those least likely to comply.
• Data requirements - Collaborating with other regulators to share data and minimise demand on businesses.
• Compliance and enforcement actions - How formal enforcement actions, including sanctions and penalties, should be applied - following the Macrory principles on penalties.
• Accountability - Increasing the transparency of regulatory organisations by asking them to report on outcomes, costs and perceptions of their enforcement approach
Hampton Implementation Reviews
• Reviews of regulators to check Hampton’s recommendations are being implemented by regulators
• Action plan leading to continuous improvement• Key to better regulation behaviour where Government in direct
contact with citizen• Incentives for regulator – reputation + access to modern
compliance tools
Macrory Sanctions
• Set out in the Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Act 2008
• The Macrory review found regulators to be over-reliant on criminal prosecution – not always the most appropriate response and many regulators going unpunished because regulators lacked the necessary means to tackle them
• Recommended a range of civil sanctions that are transparent, flexible and proportionate
Macrory Sanctions – the Toolkit
• The RES Act allows Ministers, by order, to give a regulator access to four new civil sanctions:
• Fixed monetary penalty (FMP) notices – under which a regulator is able to imposed a monetary penalty of a fixed amount
• Stop notices – which will prevent buisnesses from carrying on an activity prescribed in the notice until it has taken steps to come back into complaince.
Macrory Sanctions – the toolkit• Discretionary requirements – which will enable a regulator to
impose, by notice, one or more of the following:
• A variable monetary penalty (VMP) determined by the regulator
• A requirement to take specified steps within a stated period to secure that an offence des not continue to happen again (compliance notice)
• A requirement to take specified steps within a stated period to secure that the position is restored, so far as possible, to what it would have been if no offence had been committed (restoration notice)
Macrory Sanctions – the Toolkit
• Enforcement Undertakings – which will enable a business, which a regulator reasonably suspects of having committed an offence, to give an undertaking to a regulator to take one or more corrective actions set out in the undertaking
Government is looking for a step change in its relationships with its customers…
• “This is the future of our public services. Accessible to all, personal to you. Not just a basic standard, but the best quality tailored to your needs” Prime Minister
• “We must be relentlessly customer-focused” Gus O’Donnell
• “To change public services so they more often meet the needs of people and businesses, rather than the needs of government…services that are better for the customer, better for front line staff and better for the taxpayer” – David Varney, Service Transformation Agenda
Improving our ‘customer insight’ capability
Source: (1) Government Communications Network: Engage Programme (2) Will, S. “The management and communication of customer insight”, Interactive Marketing, April/June 2005
A customer-focused organisation has customer insight and orientation embedded throughoutA customer-focused organisation has customer insight and orientation embedded throughout
Consultation sessions
Meeting real people
Intermediary feedback
People observation
Listening in
Letters and complaints
Databases
Syndicated data
Social studies
Surveys
Environmental
Political
Economic
Technical
Social
Legislative
Focus Groups
Quantitative Studies
Segmentation Studies
Behaviour and attitude
Interviews
Social research
Enviro
nmen
t
Data
Research People
Closeness