This is the final post in our series answering the simple but important question: why does the Regulatory Policy Committee matter?
In previous posts we explored:
- why the RPC matters for growth – how well-designed regulation boosts investment and promotes growth – so that Britain can be “the best place to start a business, grow a business, run a successful business and work in a thriving business, anywhere in Europe”
- why the RPC matters for business – with leaders from across sectors: from manufacturing to hospitality and from small and medium sized enterprises to major corporations valuing the role that the RPC plays and seeing it as vital to ensuring that regulation works for them
- the importance of the RPC for Parliament – how RPC scrutiny reassures MPs about the robustness of the analysis underpinning regulatory proposals and warns them when the evidence base is weak and further parliamentary scrutiny may be required
- the value of the RPC for the UK’s international reputation, for inward investment and for international trade – how the RPC’s role is central to the high ranking of the UK’s regulatory framework and how that is important for trading partners and inward investors
This final post shows how the RPC has raised the quality of evidence and analysis underpinning regulatory proposals and thereby improved UK regulation.
Raising the quality of impact assessments
More than 30% of impact assessments (IAs) submitted to the RPC are initially rated “not fit for purpose”, meaning that there are major concerns about the quality of the evidence or analysis presented - for example relating to the rationale for regulation, options assessment or small and micro business assessment.
When this happens, the RPC provides detailed feedback and works with the department to address the weaknesses. As a result, the proportion of deficient IAs falls to below 5% by the time they are finalised.
That improvement reflects the value of independent scrutiny - and raises an important question:
what would the quality of regulatory analysis look like without RPC scrutiny?
Strengthening post-implementation evaluation
Regulation should not end when it is introduced. It should be evaluated to determine whether it is working correctly, whether it is having any unintended consequences and if it is achieving its intended objectives.
Before the RPC began actively monitoring and publishing data on departmental performance, more than 40% of regulations were not being evaluated as planned.
By publishing this data and securing commitments from departments to improve their performance, the RPC has helped drive a huge reduction in missed evaluations - strengthening accountability and improving regulatory effectiveness across government.
Improving the analysis of free trade agreements
Free trade agreements (FTAs) are central to the UK’s post-Brexit trading arrangements. Yet the initial impact assessments submitted for review often emphasised potential opportunities while giving insufficient attention to costs, risks and the levels of uncertainty in the estimates.
The RPC worked closely with trade analysts in the Department for Business and Trade (and previously the Department for International Trade) to ensure that final FTA IAs present a more balanced assessment — transparently setting out both the benefits and potential downsides of the FTA. The result was analysis that better summarised the impacts of the trade agreement and was more useful to decision makers and stakeholders alike.
Independent scrutiny improves UK regulation
By challenging weak analysis, promoting evaluation and insisting on balance, the RPC has improved the quality, credibility and transparency of the UK’s regulatory decision making and the effectiveness of our regulations.
1 comment
Comment by Maureen Treadwell posted on
Impact assessments must be thorough and robust.
In the case of the Rental Reform Bill, for example, there has been no meaningful assessment of its impact on private rental supply . The evidence suggests that tenants are being made homeless and that unsustainable costs are being imposed on local council's homelessness budgets.
I support the abolition of Section 21. However, its impact, needed a thorough impact assessment, particularly in the absence of a clear, swift and efficient process to remove tenants who engage in antisocial behaviour or did not pay rent . It is likely that some of the unintended consequences we are now seeing could have been averted had there been a thorough impact assessment. Moreover, impact assessments, whatever their quality assessment, need to be periodically measured against real world impact after the legislation has been enacted both in the long and short term to ensure correct metrics have been selected. Brief open consultations may also be helpful. The rental reform bill, for instance, is not leading to a loss of overall rental supply, it is leading to a quite dramatic loss at the affordable end of the market where the most needy tenants live. This vital nuance would have been missed without granular knowledge that can come from open consultation. It is, however, good to hear of the work of this committee and I hope it will lead to better policy in the future.