Regulation exists to protect people, businesses, the environment and/or economic growth, stability and market operations. When proportionate, targeted, consistent, transparent and accountable, regulation delivers important benefits. However, regulation also creates costs for organisations and, if overused, inappropriately designed or poorly implemented, it can stifle competitiveness and growth.
Government has therefore rightly decided that rule-based approaches should be a last resort - used when alternatives such as market-based structures, self-regulation and other enforcement practices aren't enough. Departments have also been told to limit the cost of regulation to organisations.
Although regulation is only used when necessary, it is an important way of ensuring that public services work as desired, especially when more are being delivered locally. And where there is regulation, government needs to balance the protection of customers against prices, costs and organisational efficiencies.
Key NAO publications: A Short Guide to Regulation (Aug 2015), Using alternatives to regulation to achieve policy objectives (Jun 2014) and Business Perceptions Survey 2014 (May 2014)
This report assesses how well Ofwat, Ofgem, Ofcom and the FCA measure and report their performance in protecting consumer interests.
The NAO is publishing a suite of short guides for the new Parliament, one for each government department and a selection of cross-government issues, to assist House of Commons select committees and members of Parliament.
Regulators and government need to work together better to ensure that vulnerable consumers get the support they need.
This toolkit is designed to guide those overseeing public service markets or assessing the effectiveness of these markets in terms of value for money and user outcomes. It helps government address a set of new challenges around its use of markets to deliver public services, including oversight, consumer protection, regulation and helping to achieve effective competition and innovative delivery.
This good practice guide aids improvement in performance measurement and reporting by regulators and other organisations seeking to deliver outcomes through third parties. It has been developed in collaboration with regulators and includes the NAO’s experience from working with them and examples of regulators’ good practice. It’s complemented by ‘Performance measurement: Good practice criteria and maturity model’.
The approach to reducing the cost of regulation is set up to ensure that government can hit a £10bn target but misses the point by not truly reducing costs on businesses.
Since privatisation, Ofwat and Defra have overseen major improvements in water quality and service quality. Customers have seen a marked rise in bills but not the benefits of companies’ unexpected financial gains.
The NAO is publishing a suite of short guides relating to each government department and some cross-government issues, to assist House of Commons Select Committees.
This guide is designed to provide a quick and accessible overview of the financial services regulation, redress and advice bodies, using our published work. It covers:
• The responsibilities 5 financial services regulation, redress and advice bodies and how they spend their money
• Interaction and cooperation between the 5 bodies
• Our recent findings and future challenges for the 5 bodies
• Case studies on the impact of payment protection insurance mis-selling on the Financial Ombudsman Service and the financial crisis on the Financial Services Compensation Scheme
The Charity Commission has made early progress in addressing NAO and Public Accounts Committee recommendations, but significant challenges remain.