Anderson Review of Guidance provision
The Good Guidance Guide: Taking the uncertainty out of regulation
Every year almost half of businesses seek external advice about how to follow regulations, spending at least £1.4 billion. The 2008 Enterprise Strategy asked Sarah Anderson CBE to conduct an independent review looking into the best ways Government can give regulatory guidance to businesses.
Nature of the Review
The report, 'The Good Guidance Guide' published on 28th January 2009, focuses on the need for government to give businesses greater certainty over finding, following and interpreting guidance.
The report focuses on:
- Increasing certainty over outcome
- Making guidance more accessible
- Providing clearer guidance
- Achieving consistent guidance across government
- Changing the culture of the relationship between regulators and businesses
Biography of reviewer
Sarah Anderson ran her own company for 19 years – Mayday Group – a four branch specialist employment business and agency providing catering staff. Other business interests include being joint founder and Director of Simple Solutions Ltd. She is also a non-executive director of Jobcentre Plus, the UK’s largest government agency and Council Member of ACAS. In October 2005 she was appointed Director of London Samaritans and has been a member of the Employment Tribunal Steering Board since April 2006. In the past she has provided ‘Angel’ finance and worked as a small business counsellor in London.
The report, 'The Good Guidance Guide' and supporting documentation is available below.
The Government Response to the Anderson Review
The Government published its response on 5th March 2009 and committed to take actions including:
- piloting a telephone advice service, which provides tailored, insured advice to help businesses comply with employment and health and safety law;
- removing the disclaimers which create uncertainty when relying on government guidance;
- giving inspectors greater discretion about the prosecution of businesses that reasonably believe they are following guidance; and
- setting out when it will update the most frequently used guidance to comply with the 'Code of Practice on Guidance'.
Government response to the Anderson review
Progress report on commitments made in response to the Anderson Review
In its response to the Anderson Review of Government guidance, the Government committed to produce a short progress report in Spring 2010. This has now been published and explains what has been done to achieve Sarah Anderson's twelve recommendations or, as in a couple of cases where this has not been considered appropriate.
Progress Report (PDF, 293 Kb)
Steps have been taken to improve the quality of official guidance by strengthening the Code of Practice on Guidance on Regulations, making advice more tailored to the needs of business, improving the range of guidance available and increasing awareness amongst businesses of the support open to them.
Please see the Code of Practice on Guidance on Regulation and Taking the insured advice recommendation forward pages for more detail about these particular recommendations.
