A simple demand – smarter regulation

Stephen White

European Commission

PREPARATION Ex-ante evaluation/

Impact Assessment

ADOPTION Revision/new measure

EVALUATIONEx-post evaluation

IMPLEMENTATIONMonitoring

Improving legislation at all stages of the

policy cycle

Smart regulation

Smart Regulation

is about the whole policy cycle

must remain a shared responsibility of

the European institutions and of Member States

is about strengthening the voice of

citizens and other stakeholders

8 October 2010, COM(2010) 543

Looking forward – Impact Assessment

The Rationale behind Impact Assessment

• Make better proposals

– Changed two-thirds of our proposals, often significantly

• Promote coherence – consider social, economic and environmental impacts

• Transparent and open decision making

• Show consideration given to a proposal

Common sense questions

• Was right procedure followed incl stakeholder consultation?

• What is the problem? Evaluation as input

• What are the objectives?

• What policy options exist?

• What are the impacts and trade-offs?

• Future monitoring and evaluation?

What is Impact Assessment?

– Not a substitute for political judgement!– One system, applied to all Commission proposals– 600 or so available on the web– Never fully quantified– Takes time and money to do properly

The final product

• Commission Staff Working Paper so only translate Executive Summary (no more than 30 pages)

Impact Assessment Board

• Launched by President Baroso on 14 November 2006

• « Independent body » to ensure good quality of the Commission impact assessments

• No escape – examines them all

• Resubmission rate of around 40%– Stops a proposal going ahead until passed

– Quality bar increasing over time

• The Inter Institutional AgreementEuropean Parliament and Council will assess the

impact of substantial amendments (eg Batteries amendment)

The three institutions agreed common approach to impact assessment

• Member StatesFor many, analysis is not systematic or

transparent

Outside the Commission

• Quality check• Commitment (not voluntary – turkeys don’t vote

for Christmas)– Start early…

• External scrutiny• Integrated (economic, environmental, social)• Support and advice throughout

– Resource-intensive, but the best way to get a good process and product and to influence decisions

• Good evidence base as to what has worked and what the problems are

What makes it work

Looking back – Evaluation

Evaluation – a political priority

Reinforcing the use of evaluation

Evaluation, what and why ?Evaluation is the main tool used by the Commission to assess the extent to which EU

interventions reach the set policy objectives and how their performance can be

improved in the future. Well-conducted evaluations can help improving the relevance,

effectiveness and cost- effectiveness of public interventions and evaluation can

increase the transparency and accountability concerning EU expenditure.

Communication SEC(2007)213 of 21.2.2007. Responding to Strategic Needs:

Reinforcing the use of evaluation

Evaluation to support new initiatives

• New significant initiatives should be based on an evaluation of the

policy framework in place

• Evaluation should be covered extensively in the roadmaps

– Flag all relevant evaluative material in support of your initiative

– Evaluation aspects are an important factor in SG-DG bilateral meetings

• Evaluation forms the basis for the Impact Assessment (IA)

• IAs have a section on future evaluation arrangements

Evaluation in figures 2010

Number of ex-post evaluations finalised? 113

Average cost of an external evaluation ? 200 000 euro

Total cost for all external evaluations? 19 million euro

Percentage of outsourced evaluations? 80 %

Average duration for a retrospective evaluation? 14 months

Total number of evaluations completed so far: over 1300!

Fitness checks pilots

• Employment and social affairs: Information and consultation of workers

• Enterprise:Agro-food industry

• Environment: Protection of EU freshwater resources

• Transport: Internal market for aviation

Delivery: 2012

‘Fitness checks’ of entire policy

sectors

Water Framework

directive

Complementaryapproach

Systematic assessments of

regulatory measures

Groundwater directive

Environmental Quality

Standards directive

Floods

directive

Urban Waste Water directive

Nitratesdirective

Water scarcity and drought

communication

• A demand exists• Moving from programmes to policies• A good evidence base from the Member States

What makes it work

• Promoting assessment– Environmental Impact Assessment Directive– Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive– Aarhus Directive

• Within policies, for example:– Socio-economic analysis in REACH– River Basin Management Plans– Environmental Liability Directive – assess damage

Not just Commission internally

• Evaluation on Europa: http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/secretariat_general/evaluation/index_en.htm

• Better regulation: http://ec.europa.eu/governance/better_regulation/index_en.htm

• Impact Assessment on Europa: http://ec.europa.eu/governance/impact/index_en.htm

• Smart Regulation Communication:http://ec.europa.eu/governance/better_regulation/documents/com_2010_0543_en.pdf

Key links