The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills yesterday announced an action plan on better regulation to bring an end to the excess regulation that is stifling business growth. The first phase of their plan was announced by Vince Cable and builds on some of the policy announcements put forward in the Conservatives Regulation in a Post Bureaucratic Age policy paper that was published towards the end of last year.
The action plan includes:
- Creating a new Cabinet 'Star Chamber' that will lead the Governments drive to reduce regulation which is stifling growth, especially on small businesses. This Reducing Regulation Committee will be chaired by the Business Secretary and will enforce a new approach to new laws and regulations, ensuring that their costs are being properly addressed across the entire British economy. The Reducing Regulation Committee will test regulatory proposals making sure that only those of suitably high quality (for example meeting good regulatory principles) proceed
- Establishes a new 'challenge group' to come up with innovative approaches to achieving social and environmental goals in a non-regulatory way
- Introduced a new approach that will control and reduce the burden of regulation. A 'one-in, one-out' approach, designed to change the culture of Government, would make sure that the new regulatory burdens on businesses are only brought in when reductions can be made to existing regulation.
- The action plan also contains plans to carry out an immediate review of all regulation in the pipeline for implementation which has been inherited from the last Government. The cost of implementing this amounts to £5bn annually before April 2011 and £19.1bn per annum thereafter. This will be the first action for the new Cabinet Committee.
The announcement on the action plan is a welcome continuation of the Better Regulation Agenda and is a further sign of the commitments made during the pre-election stage. Policy commitments made in the Conservatives pre-election Agenda for British Farming manifesto will sit alongside this action plan as part of the Better Regulation Agenda. In this agenda policies were set out to commission an industry-led review of all existing regulations including cross compliance, with a view to reducing burdens without compromising standards.
The agenda also stated that the overall focus of regulation will be on outcomes rather than processes, with the new administration trusting farmers to decide on the methods that best suit the conditions on their farm. The agenda also added that the Government will aim to ensure that membership of a recognised farm assurance scheme results in fewer state inspections and that inspections are minimised through greater consolidation of inspections and improved information sharing.
NFU comment
The NFU welcomed the policy statements made in the pre-election agenda and are therefore pleased that the commitment to an industry led review on regulation was again stated in the coalition programme. These initiatives have got to be good news and appear a genuine attempt to get burdens down. The legislation review will involve a lot of work across sectors, regions and teams, but provides an opportunity to have our say. We are also encouraged by the initiatives to reduce the burden arising from on-farm inspections through farm assurance schemes. Anyone who has worked on this kind of initiative will know how difficult it is to see gains in practice, but -again- the willingness is there to make this happen. It is an opportunity to cut costs, not just to farmers but to taxpayers too.
On commenting on the publication of the Coalitions 'Programme for Government' NFU President Peter Kendall said 'I am delighted to see that the Coalition is committed to reducing the regulatory burden on farmers and we look forward to the industry-led review of regulation the Conservative Party has promised. I would expect the Agricultural Wages Act - with its costly and bureaucratic regime that duplicates minimum wage legislation and reduces competitiveness - to be a prime candidate for repeal, particularly as that would reduce pressure on the public purse too; a real win-win.
No comments have been made.