Report, Reengineering Regulations in NSW for the 21st Century Part 1
| Report Date | Tuesday 6 June 2000 |
|---|---|
| Date Tabled | Wednesday 7 June 2000 |
| Ordered Printed | Wednesday 7 June 2000 |
| Paper Number | 9/52 |
| Context | General Matters (inquiry), Regulation Review Committee |
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Part 1 Section A of this Report examines the establishment and work of the Regulation Review Committee and the legislative requirements governing the making of regulations in New South Wales. Section B presents an overview of the strengths and weaknesses of the existing arrangements. Section C examines some recent regulatory reforms in other countries. Section D is my speech presented to the World Bank on 2nd December 1999, in Washington DC USA. Parts 2, 3 and 4 will be published separately. Part 2 will comprise the conference papers, proceedings and transcript of the International Conference on Regulatory Management, Reform and Scrutiny of Bills to be hosted by the New South Wales Regulation Review Committee in Sydney from 9 to 13 July 2001. Part 3 of the Report will deal exclusively with the Australian viewpoint on regulatory management and reform. Part 4 will contain recommendations for change to the New South Wales regulatory system. This constitutes the most major enterprise undertaken by the Committee since its establishment in 1989. The Regulation Review Committee, after a decade of industrious and successful operation, is in a position to build on the experience it has gained in regulatory analysis over those years by putting forward for the consideration of the Parliament changes to enhance the regulatory controls of this State. This report sets out in plain English the strengths and weaknesses of the current New South Wales regulatory system. The Subordinate Legislation Act has led to a most substantial improvement in the level of consultation undertaken by departments when formulating regulatory proposals. Time and again proposals have been refined and improved by consultation with the community. The periodic review and cull of existing regulations put in place by legislation substantially recommended by my Committee has reduced the number of regulations in force by 48 per cent. Since the introduction of the Subordinate Legislation Act we now have a mandatory set of criteria to test the social and economic consequences of regulatory proposals. The OECD in a detailed report at the end of 1999 said that these provisions have a high degree of consistency with OECD best practice recommendations for regulatory impact analysis. The Regulation Review Committee has become an increasingly important means of requiring Ministers and the Public Service to explain and justify the basis for their regulatory actions. This has raised public involvement in the regulation-making process from a previously negligible level to a point where the public is a mandatory party in the process. The Committee has played a strong role in developing the skills of its members in regulatory matters and in providing an opportunity for them to act on a bipartisan basis. However these important achievements and strengths do not mean that the existing system is not open to improvement. The most fundamental weakness in the current system is that impact assessment does not extend to bills. Very early in the Committee’s operations it became apparent that the principal weakness in the New South Wales regulatory framework was the lack of any requirement on Ministers or their departments to carry out a cost-benefit appraisal prior to the introduction of primary legislation. The Committee has drawn this to the attention of both Parliament and the New South Wales Government on numerous occasions in both speeches and reports to Parliament. Other Australian States have in the meantime acted to establish scrutiny of bills committees. The views of the New South Wales Regulation Review Committee that such a provision should be a legislative requirement has been fully endorsed in the OECD Report. The Committee has analysed many regulatory impact statements. These have recurring defects and it is clear that every Government agency without exception needs more training in the RIS process. It is evident from the same RIS defects arising time after time - despite the Committee having drawn them to the Minister’s attention - that there is a lack of commitment by public servants to the RIS process. It is often carried out by Government departments, not as a means of providing insight into the best way to implement a regulatory proposal, but merely to conform to the procedural requirements of the Subordinate Legislation Act. We have for instance an unfortunate situation where the Parliamentary Counsel draws up the regulation without even having the benefit of reading the regulatory impact statement. This is because these two documents are prepared at the same time. Section C of this reports looks at what other countries are doing and it mentions some useful initiatives that are being taken and tested. I would refer readers to the section of the Report dealing with the work that is being done in the New York State by Governor Pataki’s Office of Regulatory Reform. My Committee was advised by that office that savings resulting from its regulatory reforms total $1,780 million. This is indicative of what can be achieved by a properly designed and administered regulatory reform program. Peter R. Nagle MP Chairman
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Government Response
No Government response to this report was requested.
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