The BRE Consultation
79. The BRE consultation The Tools to Deliver
Better Regulation—Revising the Regulatory Impact Assessment
closed on 16 October 2006. The consultation document acknowledged
many of the failings of RIAs as highlighted by the NAO in their
annual reviews, and proposed a series of changes for making the
system more workable for officials, and effective in directing
policy. The objectives of the consultation were:
- "to embed Regulatory Impact
Assessments at the heart of policy making;
- to improve the quality of the economic and other
analysis that underpins policy making;
- to increase the transparency of the analysis
underlying policy options."[87]
80. There were many aspects of the consultation which
we found encouraging, not least the very fact that the system
had been recognised as sufficiently flawed to require a substantial
rethink and accompanying consultation. Among other things, the
consultation document acknowledged shortcomings in the training
provided to staff, admitted that many RIAs are not produced until
a late stage in the policy formulation process, and recognised
the need to improve the transparency of the document through a
new template. In particular, we were encouraged by the acknowledgment
that the current guidance for RIAs is confusing and lacks focus,
and we welcome the proposal to introduce an Impact Assessment
Toolkit to assist officials in the more technical aspects of assessing
impacts. We were, however, somewhat concerned at the determination
to substantially reduce the length of the guidance,[88]
given that we had called for the guidance to be expanded in several
areas in order to provide extra certainty and assistance to officials.
Until the Toolkit is produced it will be difficult to assess the
approach the BRE has taken on this matter, but we hope that the
Toolkit will be comprehensive enough not only adequately to complement
the streamlined guidance, but also to provide more practical and
thorough advice to policymakers than is currently readily available.
81. However, we were disappointed to see that
very little direct attention was paid in the BRE Consultation
to addressing the problems raised in the NAO's briefing on the
approach to sustainable development in RIAs. We would have thought
that, given the timing and the tight focus of the NAO's analysis,
the Consultation would have gone beyond acknowledging the problem
by proceeding to make recommendations which directly addressed
these issues. Sadly, other than general action intended to improve
the overall quality of RIAs, we could not see any recommendation
which directly tackled the problem of poor consideration of sustainable
development issues. Consideration of sustainable development on
the summary sheet has been limited to a yes/no response to the
question "does the policy comply with sustainable development
principles?". We consider this to be inappropriate and inadequate.
82. Two aspects of the BRE consultation document
have given us particular cause for concern and also aroused some
criticism in the memoranda submitted to us. Firstly, the continuing
focus on monetisation. Although the draft guidance released with
the consultation document has allowed for other quantitative and
qualitative assessment when monetisation is deemed impossible,
it still urged officials to aim for monetisation.[89]
We believe that some environmental impacts are often best expressed
in non-monetised terms, and we are concerned that any non-monetised
assessment would be likely to be marginalised in the structure
proposed by the consultation document. The draft summary template
attached to the consultation has only provided a small area where
non-monetised data could be presented: a 250 word summary box
which is unlikely to allow descriptive assessment to be considered
either in adequate detail or on an equal footing alongside the
tabulated monetised data.[90]
83. Beyond the lack of provision on the summary sheet
for non-monetised data, further concern is raised by the prospect
of non-monetary assessments being decoupled from the main body
of the Impact Assessment. In spite of maintaining that "all
costs and benefits will continue to be represented in the Impact
Assessment" the consultation document has stated that:
"[t]he current Regulatory Impact Guidance suggests
that a number of other assessments, covering areas such as sustainable
development, health, older people and devolved countries should
be used as a framework for the costs and benefits section of Regulatory
Impact Assessments.
As a result, these assessments are sometimes carried
out as part of the Regulatory Impact Assessment. In the nature
of these assessments, costs and benefits are difficult to quantify
and are normally addressed through a descriptive approach. The
Government believes that this contributes to the Regulatory Impact
Assessment as a whole being seen as a descriptive rather than
analytical tool.
The Government reaffirms the importance of these
impact assessments […] however it believes that they should
in future be free-standing rather than form part of the new Impact
Assessment […] All costs and benefits will continue to be
represented in the Impact Assessment. When, for example, the Race
Equality Impact Assessments identifies cost of benefit these should
be included."[91]
84. Although this statement remains ambiguous—it
is not entirely clear to what extent sustainable development assessment
is intended to be decoupled—we are concerned that such an
approach has not only possibly marginalised non-monetised assessment
to the point of exclusion, but has also implied that crucial environmental
arguments may be neglected. If the descriptive assessments included
in such tests have been deemed inappropriate for transferral into
the main RIA document, then their value as an assessment and their
role in communicating sustainable development issues will be lost.
As we have already stated, we do not believe that the decoupling
of assessments is appropriate for environmental matters, as removing
them from the main body of the assessment would only marginalise
them further. Such decoupling would go entirely against the Government's
commitment to place sustainable development and environmental
concerns at the very heart of policy making, and would reduce
the Impact Assessment process to an exercise in the balancing
of economic figures, to the utter detriment of integrated decision
making.
85. We are concerned that the steps taken in the
Consultation document to decouple certain parts of the assessment
may have marginalised environmental assessment and non-monetised
analysis. All environmental and sustainable development assessment,
whether the analysis is monetised, quantified, qualitative or
descriptive, must be included in the main body of the assessment.
Any move to decouple any part of environmental assessment represents
a backward step and denies the increasing urgency of the challenge
posed by climate change and other environmental issues.
86. Although RIAs have proved to be a flawed process
and have struggled effectively to integrate the assessment of
sustainable development issues, we believe that they have a vital
role to play in fulfilling the Government's 1997 manifesto pledge
that "concern for the environment will be put at the heart
of policy-making". Without directly addressing the shortcomings
of RIAs in assessing environmental impacts, it is difficult to
see how the government will achieve the Prime Minister's declaration
at the United Nations back in 1997, that "we must make the
process of government green. Environmental considerations must
be integrated into all our decisions, regardless of sector. They
must be in at the start, not bolted on later."[92]
RIAs have the potential to drive a change in attitude to policy
making across Government. We strongly believe that the adoption
of the recommendations included in this report would move the
RIA system towards a position where it would be better suited
to respond to the urgency of the environmental cause.
87. However,
technical changes to the structure and guidance of Regulatory
Impact Assessments can only be truly effective if they are accompanied
by commitment and enthusiasm for implementing the principles of
sustainable development in all aspects of government. It remains
to be seen whether the lasting results of the BRE Consultation
will produce a new, fairer and more effective RIA system, as a
crucial step in establishing the principles of sustainable development
throughout government as a whole.
87 These are the objectives stated on the main web
page for the consultation, available at http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/regulation/ria/consultation/index.asp
Back
88
Better Regulation Executive, The Tools to Deliver Better Regulation-A
Consultation Document, p14 http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/regulation/documents/ria/pdf/consultation.pdf Back
89
Ibid.pp.27-28 Back
90
Ibid. p22. Back
91
Ibid. p17 Back
92
Speech to the UN General Assembly, 1997. The text is at http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page1045.asp Back
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