Preventing Bureaucracy
The Better Regulation Executive works with the key public service delivery departments to prevent unnecessary new burdens being imposed on the front-line, and to look at the overall strategies departments are taking to reduce burdens. These departments are: Home Office (HO); Department of Health (DH); Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM); Department for Transport (DfT); and Department for Education and Skills (DfES).
Responsibility for this work was transferred from the Office of Public Services Reform (OPSR) to the Better Regulation Executive in October 2003, enabling the Better Regulation Executive to combine this with the work of the Public Sector Team on tackling existing bureaucracy.
Key elements and examples of this work include:
- Unifying datasets: This aims as far as possible for data to be collected just once and used many times. DH have several strands of work to reduce the burden of data collection on the National Health Service. You can read more about reducing the burden of data collection on the DH website.
- Implementing earned autonomy across public services: ODPM have given greater freedoms and flexibilities for high performing local authorities. DH are giving greater management and financial freedoms to three star hospital trusts. You can read more on the freedoms and flexibilities for local government on the ODPM website.
- Streamlining delivery processes through major policy reviews: DH's Arm's Length Body Review will reduce bureaucracy by halving the number of ALBs.
- Establishing effective front-line gateways to prevent unnecessary new burdens: A Gateway team is a central co-ordinating point to manage the flow of communications between a Government body and a public service delivery organisation to ensure that it is streamlined. The DH Gateway controls the volume of new targets, data collections and plan requirements that NHS organisations are subjected to. The DfES gateways control the volume of communication to Schools, Further and Higher Education.
- Identifying specific burdens to remove: ODPM's Area Based Initiative Review reduced 40 initiatives almost by a half. Reducing bureaucracy on the police is part of the process of police reform.
- Communicating these changes, and their links to the wider public service reform agenda, effectively to front-line staff, and providing an opportunity for feedback: The Implementation Review Unit was launched in April 2003 as the first ever independent practitioner panel to act as a scrutiny unit and cut red tape and reduce bureaucracy in schools. You can read more about the Implementation Review Unit on the DfES website
