Business leaders welcome Regulation Bill but 'prevailing Whitehall culture threatens reforms'

11 January 2006

The Institute of Directors (IoD) welcomed today's Regulatory Reform Bill but warned that risk-averse attitudes across Whitehall still threaten the essential regulatory reforms it promises to deliver.

James Walsh, Head of European and Regulatory Affairs at the IoD, welcomed the Bill saying:

"This bill is about putting in place the right machinery to help deliver the Government's reform plans and tackle costly over-regulation. However, the machine won't work unless it has the right parts and they are all working together.

"We want the Government to see the importance of changing traditional Whitehall attitudes so that regulation is no longer viewed as the first and only option. Risk-averse attitudes to policy making only serve to stamp out desirable outcomes such as business innovation.  Our members need a policy culture that is much more pro-innovation and a flexible approach to the use of regulation is at the very heart of that."

The IoD has outlined a number of important factors that will need to be in place in order to help achieve real changes, including:

• Strong political leadership - Ministers themselves need to demonstrate commitment to the better regulation agenda
• A system of promotion and salary awards for civil servants that encourages better regulation and penalises over-regulation and
• An injection of entrepreneurial culture - perhaps through more secondments to and from business.