Naomi Nicholson’s Post

The UK Government today, 16 May, published a white paper on regulation. Secretary of State Kemi Badenoch MP wants the UK to be 'the best regulated economy in the world with a well-functioning landscape of regulators'. This is a great aspiration, and the white paper is welcome. Well-designed, smart regulation can enable innovation and foster improvement, provide stability to businesses and public services, and protect users and consumers. It's particularly good to see the Government’s desire to establish regulation as a profession and to explore improved training in regulatory theory and practice for those working in regulators. The Institute of Regulation will work with the Government and the regulatory community to take this forward. There are issues in the white paper for all UK regulators to discuss and implement, and not just the business regulators listed in the white paper. Five of these issues, including how the 10 principles in the white paper will help achieve world-class regulatory service, and how the proposed Regulatory Council and one-stop shop for regulation should work in practice, are available on the Institute's website for regulators to consider as they continue to improve their own regulatory approach. I look forward to future discussions. https://lnkd.in/eir-Xw45

🖐 Five talking points on the UK Government’s White Paper on Regulation 🖐   Today the UK Government released a White Paper on Regulation: https://lnkd.in/ehdKBddK You can read the response from the Institute of Regulation board: https://lnkd.in/e3HZJn4g   Institute of Regulation is a supportive and diverse professional network for regulatory professions, experts and enthusiasts. Our members include some of the leading UK regulators, alongside renowned academics and policy experts on regulation from UK and far beyond.   We’re inviting debate on five talking points from the White Paper: 1. The White Paper focuses on economic regulation and its impact on business. Do the same issues apply to regulators in other sectors and to the impact of regulation on users and consumers?   2. How will the 10 new principles of regulation deliver a ‘world-class’ regulation as a service?   3. The Government proposes a new Regulatory Council and ‘one-stop shop’ for UK regulation. How can they be constructed to maximise their potential and usefulness to those regulated?    4. How might the Government’s proposals improve regulatory guidance, duties and accountability?   5. How does the Government expect to drive up the quality of regulation?    If you’d like to join the debate, we’ll be discussing the White Paper with regulator members at next week’s Policy special interest group on Thursday 23 May. We’d also welcome any expressions of interest from our members to participate in a special meeting on the White Paper, please contact [email protected] We look forward to the debate! 

This insight report from the Institute of Regulation highlights the strengths of the regulatory sector in the UK and shows the opportunities to drive improvement. The best bit is that it was a sum of many voices from the regulators across the UK, well done to the team that spent the time listening to all the views and experiences to produce this paper. Looking forward to getting to know the contributors and hear more about the work that was done in the background to produce this valuable resource. #Community #Regulators

🔥 🔥 Hot off the press, new research insights from Institute of Regulation - 'Good Regulation. Getting the best from regulation for the benefit of the UK economy and society'. 🔥 🔥   Based on the perceptions of over 150 regulatory professionals and experts, this research uncovered three shared opportunities to drive further improvement in UK regulation:   1. Supporting the conditions for agility and innovation in regulation. 2. Promoting consistency and coherence in legislative frameworks and regulatory mandates. 3. Building trust in regulation. On publication of this research, chair of the Institute of Regulation, Marcial Boo, said: ‘Good regulation is important for the UK. It enables businesses to thrive and innovate and public services to be well run and improve. By creating a level playing field, preventing harm and unfairness with as few unnecessary constraints as possible, regulators not only protect consumers and service users, but enable responsible UK businesses to compete and grow without being undercut by unregulated cowboys. Good regulation is a public good from which everyone benefits.     Improving regulation is also a cost-effective way to stimulate economic growth and improve public services. Good regulatory regimes give business confidence that they can invest and build public trust in the goods and services they receive.   The Institute of Regulation, the sector's professional body, has drawn on the views of its members to set out what good regulation looks like: as few burdens as possible, a focus on improvement, proportionate interventions when necessary, and the public interest at its heart.    The Institute will continue to support the sector to improve, and, with its members, work with the incoming UK government to bring benefit to the economy and public services by helping regulators to make their regulatory regimes as efficient and effective as possible.’ 👏 Thanks to everyone who contributed to this research from across the Institute of Regulation membership. Thanks to the research team, Will Taylor, Matthew Purves and Louisa Dale, with additional research from Paul Peros, Sara Kovach-Clark and @Paul Moore. Finally, our thanks to the excellent research advisory group, Michael Hanton, Matthew Gill, Naomi Nicholson, Victoria Howes 👏 👉 Read more in our latest blog and access the full report online - https://lnkd.in/eAruB6iM 👈

Regulation might not be the most exciting topic for everyone, but it's vital for keeping us safe, benefitting the economy and improving our lives. Interesting research from the Institute of Regulation highlighting three key areas which would help improve the effectiveness of regulators.

How can the UK get the best from regulation to grow the economy and benefit society? Some suggestions are in a new research report from the Institute of Regulation. In particular, regulators need to be agile in response to change, and government can help provide consistency and keep regulatory frameworks up to date. This report highlights where good regulation is already in place, and how it can improve. Worth a read.

📯 Hot off the press, the House of Lords’ new report into the performance, independence, and accountability of UK regulators. Institute of Regulation chair, Marcial Boo and board members share their thoughts in our latest blog post 📯   👇 The House of Lords committee on industry and regulators published their report today👇 https://lnkd.in/d3H3eqpK   The Committee concludes that a fresh approach to overseeing UK regulation is required, with the creation of an ‘Office of Regulatory Performance' to investigate and report on performance, supporting Parliament in holding regulators to account.    👇Institute of Regulation board member response 👇 https://lnkd.in/db2wvFm9   Here’s a personal reaction from Marcial Boo, chair of the Institute of Regulation: "Efficient and effective regulation enables businesses to thrive and innovate, and public services to be well run and improve. This requires as few unnecessary constraints as possible on those being regulated, alongside the parallel role of regulation to prevent harm and protect the vulnerable. By creating a level playing field, regulators protect consumers and service users, and enable responsible UK businesses to compete fairly, without unregulated firms undercutting their livelihoods and jeopardising UK jobs.    Good regulation is a public good, from which everyone can benefit. If regulation is efficient and well-constructed, the benefits of regulation to society overall will outweigh the costs to individual businesses or service providers. At the Institute of Regulation, we look forward to regulation being recognised as a profession in its own right, which will further improve the standards and effectiveness of UK regulators.   The Institute of Regulation welcomes the House of Lords report, and its acknowledgement of the role that we play to support better regulation in the UK, where we have an opportunity to remain a world leader. The Institute of Regulation will continue to work with Government, Parliament and our members to take forward this important agenda."

On 8 February 2024, the Industry and Regulators Committee of the House of Lords published a report called ‘Who watches the watchdogs ‘. Its focus was improving the performance, independence and accountability of UK regulators. It noted the UK is served by around 90 regulators which include the Care Quality Commission and Ofsted. The Committee noted:   ‘Regulators exercise substantial powers on behalf of Parliament and the public, but are not subject to the same forms of accountability as ministers; to quote one witness, “the people can replace their elected representatives, but they can’t vote out bad regulators”. Therefore, while it is right that regulators can exercise power independently, it is vital for democratic legitimacy that they are held to account for this.’ It went on to say: ‘In this context, Parliament’s role in scrutinising regulators, particularly through select committees, is of fundamental importance. However, there is a widespread perception, which the Committee shares, that regulators’ accountability to Parliament is insufficient. In particular, we heard that parliamentary scrutiny tends to be reactive and piecemeal, rather than systematic and routine. This no doubt reflects the complexity of regulatory performance as a topic, the quantity of regulators and the limited time and resources available to committees, but it has led to a growing vacuum in regulatory accountability.’ It proposed the following solution: ‘To plug the gap in regulatory accountability, we believe that a fresh approach is required. The Government should create a new, independent statutory body— ’the ‘Office for Regulatory Performance’—to advise and support Parliament and its committees in holding regulators to account on a much more systematic and thorough basis.’ Both CQC and Ofsted submitted papers to the Committee which essentially argued that there was already sufficient oversight of their regulatory activities by Parliamentary Committees and their sponsoring Departments. I disagree.  By way of example, CQC had three years to develop and test its new Single Assessment Framework and Provider Portal to ensure they worked efficiently, effectively, economically and, I would add, fairly. Instead, it rolled both out when clearly they were far from “oven ready.”     Belatedly the Cabinet Office is going to conduct a review of CQC to include the implementation of the Single Assessment Framework. Although this is welcome, I believe there needs to be an independent body established on a permanent basis to oversee the main UK regulators in line with the Committee's recommendation that: “To achieve more effective scrutiny, and improved regulatory performance, further resources and a new ‘Office for Regulatory Performance’ are needed.” My thanks to Amanda Knowles MBE for directing me to the Committee’s Report. 

Why don't regulators look in the rearview mirror more? We regulators are really good at creating regulations - it's kind of our thing. But how do we know that we've done a good job? How do we know that we are effectively addressing a problem? Typically, we rely on feedback. If we hear a lot of voices telling us that we've screwed up, we'll revisit what we've done. But shouldn't we be more proactive than that? Can't we do better? There's a whole field of study called 'retrospective review' that does just that. It asks, "Did we achieve our desired outcomes?" and attempts to arrive at an informed answer. This work takes dedicated resources that could be deployed to address new problems rather than revisiting old ones. This makes it hard to make the case for retrospective review. However, in my opinion, this should be a core function of a well-run regulatory body. Constantly moving forward with new regulations is something of a leap of faith. Knowing what has worked and what has not would add an element of certainty that doesn't generally exist as we rush forward with regulatory initiatives. A couple of small changes would go a long way to facilitating retrospective review: 1) Clearly articulate the desired outcomes from a regulatory intervention. What are we hoping to achieve? With this clarity in hand, we can more easily return to intervention to see if it worked, and 2) Put sunset clauses in regulations. A sunset clause cancels a piece of regulation on a certain date if it is not reviewed and updated. This puts pressure on the regulator to revisit their regulations to ensure the regulatory framework is modern and innovative. Here's an older paper that contains valuable insights on elements of a high quality retrospective review program: #regulation #publicpolicy #retrospectivereview #harvard

"All in all, the pace of regulation in the last 50 years is unprecedented in history. Regulators are motivated to write new regulations, and unmotivated to eliminate old ones; lawmakers and courts are too deferential to bureaucrats; the largest industrial giants (not to mention hospitals and universities) tacitly support costly regulations because they are even more costly to startup competitors. And those same companies can pass the regulatory burden onto consumers — shown in the famous AEI “Chart of the Century” of sector-based inflation. The more regulation, the more inflation." https://lnkd.in/gQ467YpA