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Next Steps on Regulatory Reforms

Having made real progress over the last ten years, the Government has now set out how it will continue to improve regulation in the future.

Continuing to deliver better regulation is central to the UK's economic aims:

  • meeting the challenges of globalisation
  • improving productivity
  • promoting innovation.

The Government published the document ‘Next Steps on Regulatory Reform’ in 2007, which sets out a range of initiatives that will help realise the benefits of better regulation for businesses, third sector organisations and the public sector frontline.

The Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS) leads the Government's drive on better regulation. The ‘Next Steps on Regulatory Reform’ document sets out how the department will continue to improve its own regulatory performance, plus the steps the Government will take to drive improvement.

Key objectives

The document sets out three key aims:

Target simplifications to improve the effectiveness of regulation by:

  • rethinking consumer protection legislation and working to make employment law more straightforward for all parties (this forms BERR's (now BIS's) Simplification Plan)
  • relieving the burden of health and safety via sector-specific risk assessments for small and lower-risk businesses
  • a health and safety review to improve outcomes and ease the burden on low-risk businesses
  • implementing significant measures within the BERR (now BIS) Simplification Plan.

Help people understand regulation through:

  • high quality and timely guidance
  • better communication of change.

Hold government and regulators to account by:

  • working with Parliament
  • creating a statutory duty on regulators to address burdens
  • applying the principles of the Regulators' Compliance Code to public service inspectorates.

Supplementary reports

Two further reports were published as part of the Next Steps document:

  • ‘Regulation and Business Advice’ – this examines the role of Business Advisors in regulation.
  • ‘Warning: too much information can harm’ – this is a joint interim report from the National Consumer Council and the Better Regulation Executive which examines the effectiveness of consumer information.

See the section on Reviewing regulation for more information about these reports.

 

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