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New Impact Assessments will increase transparency and improve regulation

Cabinet Office Minister Pat McFadden today announced a new Impact Assessment (IA) process to ensure that all new regulation is necessary and carried out with minimum burdens. This improves on the previous Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) with a simpler, more transparent process that will be embedded in the earliest stage of policy making. The new arrangements will begin from mid–May and all IAs will be available from an online database making them easily available for public scrutiny.

Impact Assessments are a key tool for making modern regulation that is proportionate to the issue it is designed to tackle. In some cases RIAs have been very successful at achieving this, but weaknesses in the process have led to inconsistency in its application. Following a public consultation, the new IAs will have a more prominent role in policy–making, be more transparent and build on the successes of RIAs.

Cabinet Office Minister Pat McFadden said:

“Regulations protect people from serious risks to their health and livelihoods but the cost of implementing them should be kept as low as possible. The new Impact Assessments will mean clearer guidelines for policy makers and an insistence that the Impact Assessment is conducted early in the development of regulation. This should help ensure that burdens are minimised.”

The key features of the revised Impact Assessment are:

• A revised template [PDF 26KB, 4 pages] to improve clarity and transparency including new requirements to summarise both the rationale for government intervention and evidence supporting the final proposal.
• An online database of all Impact Assessments to allow greater public scrutiny.
• A strengthened Ministerial declaration to bolster the quality of the analysis in IAs, supported by improved arrangements within departments.
• Revised guidance for policy makers to make it easier for them to produce high quality IAs focused on the burden of the regulations they are developing.
• There will be an increased emphasis on post–implementation review. The new Impact Assessment will be more transparent to stakeholders and policy–makers.

Notes to Editors

1. The Government's response to the consultation on RIAs
2. The Guidance for the new Impact Assessment can be viewed online
3. The Better Regulation Executive in the Cabinet Office works across government to support and challenge departments and regulators in minimising bureaucracy for businesses, front–line staff in the public sector and to the third sector. The Better Regulation Executive also plays an active role in promoting the better regulation agenda in Europe.

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