Work continues on the coalition government’s drive to tackle badly-designed regulations that create an unnecessary burden on business.
With prime ministerial backing, the Red Tape Challenge website was launched by business secretary Vince Cable and the Cabinet Office in April to tackle the stock of 21,000 statutory instruments.
Every few weeks a different ‘theme’ goes under the spotlight and the public are encouraged to comment on the regulations which are working and those which are not; what should be scrapped, what should be saved and what could be simplified.
Once a theme is closed, ministers have three months to explain why a regulation is still required or it could face the chop. Areas currently under investigation include regulatory enforcement, with employment and the environment among forthcoming topics.
The enforcement theme is about business experience of regulations including guidance, risk assessment, inspections and sanctions. While government won’t be scrapping any regulation in this particular area, or doing away with enforcement as a whole, it wants to hear ways in which it can do things better.
NFU adviser Lee Osborne said: “The agricultural industry is faced with a vast amount of regulation and farmers repeatedly point to the burden of regulation as a key barrier to increased productivity. While we submitted a comprehensive response to the Macdonald Review on farming regulation, the scope of this initiative is wider, with the government keen to hear views and experiences on cross-cutting issues like employment related law.
“This initiative will therefore provide a further opportunity to highlight areas of regulation impacting on agricultural businesses which weren’t picked up as part of the Macdonald report recommendations”
- Members can access the website here or alternatively forward comments to Lee Osborne (email here).
- Visit our regulation and inputs pages here.
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