A few good regulators

The General Principles:

• for the UK government to adopt a Meiji mindset which means being fearless in borrowing the best practices from around the world to drive up the quality of regulation and our economic performance in general as Japan did in its 19th century modernisation drive
• ask each UK regulator to nominate one or several foreign regulators to act as peer regulators against which the UK regulators’ performance will be benchmarked
• where there are not equivalent regulators to benchmark performance against reassess if there is a need for this UK regulator and potentially abolish it
• select the peer regulators that are the best in that policy area in the world against independent criteria and not just countries of similar size or geographic proximity
• regularly reassess the chosen peer regulators to ensure the UK’s performance continues to be benchmarked against the best foreign regulators
• require the UK regulator to provide a quarterly report on the regulatory decisions made by those peer regulators, the approach the UK regulator intends to take on each decision and how the UK’s cumulative regulatory burden compares
• establish a fast-track process for products and services approved by a peer regulator to be considered for approval in the UK
• allow individuals and companies the right to formally request a review where a foreign peer regulator has approved a product or service, but it is not yet approved in the UK.

Practical trial of the new model:

Applying this model to the planning system, the UK could:

• explore the lessons they can learn from Singapore in fast-tracking planning approvals to remove delay and added costs.
• trial aspects of the Singaporean system at a city level by allowing Manchester, London, other Mayoralties and development corporations to trial a Singaporean approach to planning.
• audit public land holdings in those cities and where possible combine land owned by different government bodies to enable larger developments in UK cities – taking a whole public sector approach and replicating some of the benefits of Singapore’s approach where most of the land is government owned.

Note: Individual regulators would select their foreign peer regulators according to general principles set by the UK government. Different criteria would be prioritised depending on the sector and the choice would be consistent with the departmental aims of the relevant department which would have ultimate oversight. PIC would advise that each department limit the criteria for choosing a peer comparator to a few criteria that are absolutely core – not a list of twenty plus factors but three to five key criteria.