Duplication
A well-coordinated regulatory environment will minimise the need for businesses to repeat processes or provide similar information for different agencies. Duplicative requirements impose a high cost in terms of time, particularly for small businesses. Businesses across the sectors saw the frequency and duplication of regulatory requirements, such as audits, inspections and surveys, as too great.
Summary of the issues:
Some duplicative requirements are imposed due to a lack of coordination between regulatory frameworks. Some are due to inconsistent approaches in the implementation of regulations and processes. Others come about through information not being shared between departments.
Businesses often identified data collection as a duplicated activity. Some agencies ask for very similar information separately, and at different times of the year. Duplication also occurs when different aspects of a business need to be audited separately.
The duplication of data collection is exacerbated by the fact that departments are not always set up to share information, and in some cases, where personal information is involved, are not permitted to do so by the Privacy Act 1993, because personal information collected for one purpose is not allowed to be used for another purpose without consent. Businesses perceive government as a single entity and so find it frustrating to have to respond more than once to "government" requests on a particular topic. Another aggravating factor is having to duplicate electronic filing with paperwork.
There is also duplication between requests for information from departments and industry bodies. Requests from the latter tend to feel more relevant to businesses, since they focus on the characteristics of the individual industry and seek less general information.
How business sees it:
Some businesses receive more than their fair share of surveys, and the Privacy Act seems to force the same information to be provided separately to departments. [wine]
Audits can be up to four times in one month, for (i) annual discharge consent from the regional council (ii) wine exporting (iii) health inspection, and (iv) food inspection. [wine]
Omnibus statistics forms are a waste of time; statistics collected by the industry are more timely and relevant. [wine]
Growsafe certification and Approved Handler certification are unnecessarily duplicative. [horticulture and wine]
A number of solutions to issues of duplication were proposed by interviewees. In general terms, these included:
- giving more recognition to the cumulative impact of audits and certification requirements. A common date for reporting, or exempting businesses from audits for a period of time after being deemed to be compliant would help;
- devising multiple purpose audit or certification tools or having inspectors or auditors carrying out multiple functions in one visit;
- improving coordination and information sharing between local authorities;
- improving coordination between departments and industry associations to collect data and providing exemptions from completing statistics returns for a period of time following compliance.
Government initiatives to reduce duplication include:
ACC, the Inland Revenue Department, the Companies Office and Statistics New Zealand are investigating ways to improve the collection of data from business, to reduce duplication between each department's requirements.
The Inland Revenue Department and the Companies Office now enable companies to register for GST at the time of incorporation.
The Ministry of Economic Development is proposing amendments to the Patents Bill to move to an electronic register instead of current duplicative paperwork filing.
Biosecurity New Zealand and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry's Quarantine Service are to be integrated to connect policy development, risk analysis, standard setting and implementation functions from 1 July 2007.
Statistics New Zealand is undertaking a number of initiatives to minimise respondent load and reduce duplication around information collection.
The Ministry of Health recently led a project to identify where contractual and legislative requirements could be enhanced and streamlined to ensure audits are more effective and efficient and less duplicative for health and disability service providers. The outcomes of this work could inform future models for multiple audits and certification requirements in the sectors we reviewed.
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