Regulations "worst way" to manage risk

News | HSW
01.12.2006

THE UK needs to tackle its "defensive and disproportionate" national attitude to risk to "safeguard its sense of adventure, enterprise and competitive edge" and avoid "regulatory overkill", says a new report from the Better Regulation Commission (BRC).

The BRC's first major report, Risk, Responsibility, Regulation: Whose Risk Is It Anyway?, calls for a public debate about the management of risk plus strong leadership from government to change perceptions of risk, and promote resilience, self-reliance and individual responsibility.

The BRC is an independent body which offers advice to the government on ways to cut regulatory and administrative burdens, to ensure regulation and enforcement are "proportionate, accountable, consistent, transparent and targeted". Its message carries weight because it draws members from private and public-sector organisations, unions and employers' bodies - including the manufacturers' organisation EEF, UKAS and the TUC.

The report (available at www.brc.gov.uk/publications/risk_report.asp) follows research among a range of stakeholders. As well as individual empowerment and a rational debate on the nature of risk, the BRC calls for training for ministers and civil servants on risk management to reduce "knee-jerk regulation"; setting up FARO (the Fast Assessment of Regulatory Options) - a panel of experts that would examine calls for government intervention; and a campaign next year against "regulatory inconsistencies and absurdities". BRC chair Rick Haythornthwaite acknowledged the contradictory pressures on regulators - "they are criticised for both intervening and failing to act" - but said the BRC's research revealed "a growing majority of people from all walks of life feel we have reached a regulatory tipping point". He argued that "rules and regulations are often the worst way to try to manage risk" and said "government intervention should be actively limited to those few areas where it is really required".

"There is no question of removing protection from where it is needed," he concluded, "but we need to get things into perspective - the cost to our society and economy of ever more regulation is too great to ignore."

A spokesperson for the HSE told HSW the executive had noted the report and had discussed the BRC's recommendations at board level.