Quality Regulation Review – Final Report
In previous issues of The Regulatory Review, we have tracked the progress of the Government's 15-month review of the quality of regulation (the Review), which is now complete. In this issue, we summarise the key findings of the Review and outline what is being done post-review to ensure the quality of New Zealand's regulatory environment in the future.
The Review was announced by the Government in May 2006 to ensure that New Zealand's regulatory environment is supportive of the government's economic transformation agenda. A Ministerial Group, led by the Minister of Commerce and Small Business, was convened to undertake the Review and was supported by an inter-departmental Taskforce comprising of senior officials from key government agencies and led by MED.
A number of projects were undertaken as part of the Review and have been discussed in previous editions of The Regulatory Review.
These include:
- studies of the regulatory issues facing the wine, hospitality, horticulture, and retail sectors. The outcomes of these studies are summarised in the Sector Studies Report;
- studies of the interface between various pieces of legislation, including the interaction of building and resource consent processes, and the interaction of the Health and Safety in Employment, Hazardous Substances and New Organisms, and ACC legislation;
- initiatives to improve regulatory process disciplines, including strengthening the RIA requirements, piloting a business cost calculator, promoting the use of regulatory flexibility, and developing guidelines on regulatory compliance;
- progressing an Omnibus Bill to fast track a number of legislative amendments to reduce compliance costs for business; and
- a review of New Zealand's standards and conformance infrastructure, which resulted in Cabinet agreeing to a number of proposals to strengthen the infrastructure and its relationship with regulators.
Two Milestone Reports were prepared as part of the Review – the first in October 2006 and the Second in April 2007.
Final Report
The Minister of Commerce released the findings of the Review on 5 September 2007 and the Final Report to Cabinet and the Sector Studies Report were made publicly available. The review concluded that the current regulatory environment for business is in fairly good shape, but that there is scope to improve the way rules are communicated to business, implemented and enforced.
The Review made good progress in addressing a number of the specific issues raised by business during the Review. Examples of the Review's achievements for business include:
- ACC and Inland Revenue have agreed to improve coordination of data collection and share information on businesses;
- The adjustment date for excise and the Alcohol Advisory Council of New Zealand (ALAC) levy paid by the wine industry are now aligned;
- The Inland Revenue Department and the Companies Office now enable companies to register for GST at the time of incorporation;
- The Department of Labour undertook a number of initiatives in the first half of 2007 to improve the information and guidance to business on a range of issues, including probationary periods, the parental leave process and returning to work, and the health and safety of contractors;
- The Department of Labour released an online tool to assist with entitlement calculations associated with the Holidays Act in March 2007; and
- Statistics New Zealand is implementing a Respondent Load Strategy that provides a framework for other initiatives that will reduce respondent load over the next three years, such as reduction of load for individual small to medium enterprises where the load is demonstrated to be unreasonable and out of step with the industry typical load.
Looking Forward
In announcing the Review's findings, the Minister of Commerce [external website], Hon Lianne Dalziel, noted that "Getting regulation right is a matter of continuous improvement ... that takes more than a one-off review. It takes a change in the way we think about regulation and the way we work with business, and that's what we've achieved".
The government's post-review approach to ensuring the quality of New Zealand's regulatory environment focuses on four objectives: ensuring the quality of new regulation; improving the quality of existing regulation; developing a culture of good regulatory practice; and building the capability of regulators and of business.
The Ministry of Economic Development will implement an ongoing programme of sector studies to ensure continuous improvement of the regulatory environment and a two-year trial of a Business Cost Calculator to quantify the compliance costs of regulation. The government will examine the feasibility of introducing Standard Business Reporting (as used in the Netherlands and Australia) whereby businesses can submit financial data to several government agencies in just one transaction, cutting the time and effort spent preparing and filing reports to government.
Review Documents
Copies of the key documents prepared as part of the Review, including the documents referred to in this article, other reports, Cabinet papers and media statements, are available on the MED website at: www.med.govt.nz/qrr.
Dawn Leung-Wai
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