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Council Policy for Regulation and Enforcement
On 22 October 2008, the Executive adopted the Policy for Regulation and Enforcement and
endorsed its application to all regulatory services of the
Council.
Regulators’ Compliance Code
The code was issued with the approval of
parliament under the Legislative
and Regulatory Reform Act 2006 (LRRA 2006) (PDF, 143 KB)
>> Its broad purpose was to promote efficient and
effective approaches to regulatory inspection and enforcement
without imposing unnecessary burdens on business.
In essence, the Code expects regulators to
adopt positive approaches towards ensuring compliance with the
law:
- by helping and encouraging regulated
entities to understand and meet regulatory requirements more easily
and
- by responding proportionately to
regulatory breaches.
The LRRA 2006 includes two important
provisions:
(i) it imposes a duty on any
person exercising a specified regulatory function to have regard to
the five principles of good regulation. To adhere to the
principles, regulatory activities should be carried out in a way
which is transparent, accountable, proportionate and consistent
and should betargeted only at cases in which action
is needed.
(ii) It enables a Minister of the Crown
to issue a Code of Practice relating to the exercise of regulatory
functions. This is the ‘Regulators Compliance Code’ and where an
authority exercises a regulatory function of setting standards or
giving general guidance about the exercise of regulatory functions,
that authority must have regard to ‘The Code’.
The Policy for Regulation and Enforcement
reflects both these legal duties.
Part 1
Part 1 of The Code sets its overarching aim of
promoting a compliance-based approach rather than an
enforcement-driven one: A compliance-based approach makes more use
of advice and support to encourage compliance with the focus being
on helping business to understand & comply with legislation
more easily. Enforcement actions should be more proportionate &
targeted which should improve outcomes without imposing unnecessary
burdens on the regulated.
Part 2
Part 2 of The Code sets out the seven Hampton
principles which frame the specific obligations of the Code
- economic progress;
- risk assessment
- information & advice;
- inspections and other
visits
- data requirements;
- compliance &
enforcement
- accountability
Summary
In summary, The Code sets out express
provisions in the following areas:
- consulting and involving
stakeholders
- achieving consistency and fairness in
decisions
- publishing/making available relevant
information
- giving reasons for
decisions
- providing complaints
procedures
Application
It is important to remember that The Code
applies when determining general policy or
principles or when setting standards or giving
general guidance about the exercise of other regulatory
functions. This means that it does not apply to
decisions of a direct kind, which actually affect
an individual person or group. So, for example, The Code
does not apply to the individual, operational-level activities of
inspectors, investigators and enforcement officers.
Note on the Enforcement Concordat
In 2002 the Council signed up to the
Enforcement Concordat which embodied the “Principles of Good
Enforcement: Policy and Procedure”. This document set out what
business and others being regulated, should expect from enforcement
officers.
The principles were as follows:
- Standards: setting clear
standards
- Openness: clear and open provision of
information
- Helpfulness: helping business by
advising on and assisting with compliance
- Complaints: having a clear complaints
procedure
- Proportionality: ensuring that
enforcement action is proportionate to the risks
involved
- Consistency: ensuring consistent
enforcement practice.
Now, nearly ten years after the Enforcement
Concordat was introduced, significant progress has been made to
improve approaches to regulatory inspection and enforcement. The
Philip Hampton review, established by the Government in 2004, was
influential in promoting the new approaches, which included:
- increased use of risk assessment to
precede and inform all regulatory enforcement work,
- increased use of support and advice to
help businesses to understand and meet regulatory requirements more
easily, and,
- adoption of proportionate, targeted and
flexible approaches to applying the law and securing
compliance.
When the Department for Business, Enterprise
and Regulatory Reform, consulted on whether the Regulators
Compliance Code should supersede the Enforcement Concordat, the
majority of the respondents strongly supported keeping the
Concordat alongside the Compliance Code. So, the Compliance
Code does not replace the Enforcement Concordat.
Background papers
Regulators Compliance
Code – Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform –
17 December 2007 (PDF, 108KB) >>.
Enforcement
Concordat; A Good Practice Guide for England & Wales -
Department of Trade & Industry (PDF, 429KB)
>>