This article was downloaded by: [University of North Texas]

On: 29 November 2014, At: 12:03

Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer
House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Public Money & Management

Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rpmm20

High-quality regulation: its popularity, its tools and

its future
a b
Martin Lodge & Kai Wegrich
a
London School of Economics
b
Hertie School of Governance , Berlin
Published online: 25 Mar 2009.

To cite this article: Martin Lodge & Kai Wegrich (2009) High-quality regulation: its popularity, its tools and its future,
Public Money & Management, 29:3, 145-152, DOI: 10.1080/09540960902891640

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09540960902891640

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the Content) contained
in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no
representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of
the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,
and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied
upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall
not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other
liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or
arising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic
reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any
form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://
www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions
 145

High-quality regulation: its

popularity, its tools and its future
Martin Lodge and Kai Wegrich
Ideas regarding better regulation and high-quality regulation have become key
aspects of contemporary administrative reform initiatives. What explains the
popularity of this agenda? What does the comparative experience tell us about its
impact? And what is its future? This article suggests that the contemporary debate
is flawed by competing assumptions hiding behind a common language. A more
promising approach is to embed high-quality regulation into regulatory
conversations rather than imposing requirements through hierarchical means.
Downloaded by [University of North Texas] at 12:03 29 November 2014

Complaints about red-tape and unnecessary
bureaucracy are as commonplace as the regular
announcements of red-tape bonfires and newly-
anointed regulation-busting czars. The United
Kingdom has arguably been a leader in better
regulation activities, the latest initiative being
the consideration of regulatory budgets
(BERR, 2008). However, the call for better
regulation has not just been a British
preoccupation, it has also reached the shores of
international organizations, such as the OECD
and the EU (Baldwin, 2005). Labelled high-
quality regulation, it represents a key aspect of
contemporary administrative reform ideas,
stressing the link between regulation and
competitiveness; a link that has shaped thinking
since the mid-1990s in World Bank circles
(Levy and Spiller, 1994). This language and
concern has moved beyond OECD member
states; for example, Brazil recently was involved
in one of the OECDs benchmark reviews on
regulation (Lodge, 2005) and the conclusion,
unsurprisingly, was that Brazil was to embrace
a high-quality regulation agenda (OECD, 2008).
The enthusiastic reception of high-quality
regulation (HQR) reflects two developments.
First, after two decades of regulatory reform,
especially in utilities regulation, evidence exists
to review and compare performance across
sectoral and national experiences. Second,
regulation has not withered away, but is here to
stay, partly to deal with inevitable monopoly
elements in infrastructure industries, partly to
deal with market failures, such as information
asymmetries and externalities, and partly to
deal with political demands for control over
social and economic activities. Furthermore,
regulation is no longer regarded as necessary
evil, but is understood as key to attracting
investment and facilitating economic and social
life. Therefore, concern regarding the quality
2009 THE AUTHORS
JOURNAL COMPILATION 2009 CIPFA
rather than the quantity of regulation has moved Martin Lodge is
to the forefront of debates. Nevertheless, does Reader in Political
HQR provide the cure against red-tape? To Science & Public
unpack this question, we develop answers to Policy, London
three questions: School of Economics.
Why has it become so popular? Kai Wegrich is
Does it matter? Professor of Public
What is its future? Management, Hertie
School of
Why has HQR become so popular? Governance, Berlin.
It is doubtful whether anyone would disagree
with the desirability of high-quality regulation
as opposed to low-quality regulation. However,
what does HQR mean exactly? The core
attraction of the term is that it appeals to
different constituencies at the very same time;
it is a term and agenda divided by a common
language. At least four different constituencies
have embraced the language of HQR:
HQR appeals to those clamouring for
enhanced technocratic and apolitical
oversight in the formulation of regulatory
standards and for more consistency in the
application of regulation, especially in
enforcement. For example, the idea of risk-
based regulation, advocated with much
fervour among UK financial regulators prior
to the Northern Rock fiasco, appeals because
of its supposed promise that resources are
focused on those risks that are of a systematic
nature (see Black, 2005). Others see
regulation as an irrational product of
overexcited publics and politicians, eager to
please popular demands to deal with the
latest risk and public outcry over some
accident or misdeed (Breyer, 1992).
Accordingly, HQR is about creating
procedural and organizational devices that
channel demands for regulation and allow
10.1080/09540960902891640
PUBLIC MONEY & MANAGEMENT MAY 2009
 146
for a cool-headed view regarding problems
and probabilities. In short, it is about adding
Weberian elements to regulatory politics.
HQR appeals to those demanding a
strengthening of the regulatory community
among practitioners. HQR is about
facilitating conversation and peer-review
among regulatory bodies in order to develop
a higher degree of autonomy vis--vis politics.
HQR is therefore about increased
professionalization of the regulatory
community across all activities of standard-
setting, information-gathering and
behaviour-modification. This is achieved
through incentivizing regulatory bodies to
consider more carefully their objectives and
their instruments.
Downloaded by [University of North Texas] at 12:03 29 November 2014
HQR appeals to those advocating less
regulation and the removal of the dead
hand of the state. Regulation should be kept
to an absolute minimum as the effects of
regulatory activities are potentially more
harmful than beneficial. Thus, HQR is about
reducing burdens to business (as this
enhances competitiveness), the reliance on
market-type processes (for example,
insurance markets for housing built on flood
plains), and the belief that all regulation is
incentive-distorting. Advocates embrace
sunset clauses (i.e. provisions that go out of
force by a certain deadline unless re-invoked)
and one in, one out requirements (i.e.
provisions that require that regulation is
only introduced if elsewhere regulation is
eliminated), despite limited evidence
concerning the effectiveness of these tools.
Finally, HQR appeals to those suggesting that
regulation faces inbuilt limitations in its effects
and possibilities. The best that HQR
instruments should hope for is to reduce the
possibilities of side-effects and perversities
(achieving the opposite end of what is
desired). Regulation should focus on the
systemic and the essential, with demands for
more regulation to be resisted.
In figure 1, we illustrate the four perspectives
by drawing on the four-fold typology derived
from Christopher Hoods application of grid-
Figure 1. Rival views regarding HQR.
D-type: HQR as tool to minimize A-type: HQR as structuring
perverse effect regulatory activities
C-type: HQR as tool to deregulate B-type: HQR as deepening
professional conversations
PUBLIC MONEY & MANAGEMENT MAY 2009
group cultural theory to public management
(Hood, 1998). Underlying the shared language
and appeal are fundamental disagreements
about relationships between individuals,
markets and the state. Most HQR discussions
hide behind these differences. Such a state of
affairs might be helpful for consultants and
government officials who have tied themselves
to the mast of HQR, but it means that initiatives
will go through inevitable life-cycles from early
enthusiasm to futility and despair. A more
promising approach would be to address
differences and potential areas of agreement
openly. It is only through regulatory
conversations that something resembling HQR
is likely to embed itself within national and
international regulatory systems (Black, 2002).
However, so far, the diverse assumptions
regarding HQR have largely remained hidden
behind the faade of common phraseology.
Does the HQR agenda matter?
There are two ways in which an HQR agenda
matters. First, it matters if observed outputs
and outcomes can be traced back to a
consistently designed and applied set of
instruments drawn from one single HQR
perspective, regardless of contestation
surrounding the broad HQR agenda. For such
an evaluation to take place, we also require a
degree of stability in chosen instruments over
time. A further, related difficulty is that HQR-
related interventions are hardly ever trialled in
a critical experiment kind of fashion and the
causal link between intervention and social
outcome is hardly straightforward.
Second, the HQR agenda matters even if it
displays incoherence or recurring shifting of
dominant perspectives as it points to changes
in the value judgements that are inherent in
any evaluation exercise, thereby also providing
a strong indication regarding shifting balances
of power among interested parties in the HQR
agenda.
In this section, we do not seek to engage in
traditional evaluation exercises (given the
acknowledged complexities and limitations of
such an exercise), but unpack how the HQR
agenda is shaped by contesting perspectives on
regulation in particular, and wider state-
economy relations more generally. We do so by
concentrating on three key aspects of the HQR
agendaregulatory impact assessments, the
standard cost model, and the overall issue of
the governance of regulatory quality. Do these
tools display similar disagreements as the wider
HQR agenda? And what has been the trajectory
of these tools in different jurisdictions? We
2009 THE AUTHORS
JOURNAL COMPILATION 2009 CIPFA
 147

mainly draw on examples from the UK (often
said to be a frontrunner), the European Union
(often ridiculed as source of bad regulation by
blame-shifting politicians) and Germany
(supposedly a reluctant adopter). Table 1
provides an overview of reform initiatives in
the three jurisdictions.
Regulatory impact assessments (RIA)
Utilizing RIAs to consider options and to inform
policy-making has been one of the key trends
in international policy-making. RIAs, an
attempt to appraise the potential impacts of
regulatory interventions under consideration,
provide for a prime example of multiple
meanings hiding behind a common language,
as discussed above. Most of the OECD world
Downloaded by [University of North Texas] at 12:03 29 November 2014
support the design of regulation, but the
underlying motivations and understandings
vary substantially (Radaelli, 2009).
Most aficionados of HQR (identifiable as A-
types in figure 1) support RIA systems as a tool
of apolitical and technocratic decision-making:
impact assessment supposedly allows for
systematic information gathering and analysis
of options in response to policy problems. In
many ways, RIAs are a reminder of the policy
sciences of the 1950s and the planning
movement of the 1960s and 1970s, associated
with PPBS or Zero Based Budgeting (and given
the failures of these initiatives, this past is
conveniently ignored). Political discretion is
limited to options informed by supposedly
rigourous research and evidence (including

has adopted some RIA variant or another to do nothing options and alternatives to

Table 1. Overview of different reform initiatives.

UK Germany EU

RIA First initiative to establish compliance
costs assessment as predecessor of RIA
in the 1980s
Shift to comprehensive impact testing
and policy (stages) planning under
Labour since 1997
Early adoption of broad assessment
criteria as part of law drafting process
(blue test questions) in the mid-1980s
IA procedure regulated in internal
governmental rules of procedures
(2000), new guidance material
published
Low level of departmental compliance
due to lack of monitoring or oversight
mechanisms
Sector specific impact tests since the
1980s (environmental impact
assessment)
Multiplication of sectoral IAs since the
mid-1990s (environmental impact
assessment, competitiveness impact test)
Integration in a comprehensive
IA system since 2003
Establishment of monitoring and
advisory capacity (since 2006), including
an Impact Assessment Board
composed of external experts, which
publishes assessments of quality of IAs

SCM Comprehensive administrative burden
reduction programme adopted in 2005
25% reduction until 2010, progress
monitoring based on departmental
reduction plans
Baseline measurement between
September 2005 and May 2006
Ex ante measurement process
established, but limited quality control
Recent shift towards wider compliance
costs (regulatory budget) agenda
Comprehensive administrative burden
reduction programme adopted in 2006
25% reduction until 2012
Baseline measurement from 20072008
(drawing on the Federal Statistics
Office)
Limited planning of and oversight
over simplification measures
Strong oversight of ex ante measurement
exercised by newly-established
Normenkontrollrat
Adoption of the SCM method in 20062007
after initial reluctance concerning the
applicability of the model in the EU
context
Ex ante assessment of administrative
costs, with low compliance in practice
Baseline measurement of 40
pieces of law in 13 priority areas,
applying a simplified version
of the SCM method (i.e.
drawing on results of national
measurements)

Governance Various units attached to Cabinet Office
since 1980s (Deregulation Unit, Regulatory
Impact Unit, Better Regulation Unit);
growths of the unit (up to 90 staff) under
Labour
Advisory unit with business experts
(better regulation task force) terminated in
2007
Better Regulation Unit shifted to new
Department for Business, Enterprise and
Regulatory Reform
Until 2006: fragmented responsibility of
line ministries (economics, interior) with
limited dedicated staff
Establishment of better regulation
unit in the Chancellery (12 staff)
and the external advisory body
(Normenkontrollrat, regulatory
control council) with rights of
intervention into the drafting of
laws; secretariat in the
Chancellors office
Fragmented responsibility recently
concentrated in Secretariat General
and DG Enterprise, with the
former responsible for RIA and
the latter SCM and deregulation
Lack of co-ordination, oversight and
control addressed recently with the
establishment of Impact Assessment
Board, increase in DG Enterprise staff
and the creation of external stakeholder
group dealing with administrative
simplification

Where RIA = regulatory impact assessment; SCM = standard cost model; and IA = impact assessment.

2009 THE AUTHORS

JOURNAL COMPILATION 2009 CIPFA PUBLIC MONEY & MANAGEMENT MAY 2009
 148
regulation). RIA systems supposedly regulate
the process of policy making, i.e. the drafting of
regulations, how consultation is conducted,
and how evidence is collected throughout the
decision-making process. In short, RIAs offer
the political and bureaucratic modern-day
equivalents of Odysseus a convenient self-
binding means to avoid the sirens of
concentrated interests or hysterical publics.
In contrast to this technocratic view of
RIAs, other advocates regard RIAs as a first
step to a full-blown cost-benefit analysis,
especially in terms of offering control by the
centre against the supposed pro-regulatory
tendencies of different departments.
Accordingly, RIAs are about stopping
regulation per se (thereby appealing to C-types
Downloaded by [University of North Texas] at 12:03 29 November 2014
in figure 1). Others (B-types) see RIAs as an
important tool in terms of professionalizing
bureaucracy, in particular in terms of forcing
individual actors to justify and consider their
proposals.
The limits of technocratic aspirations and
disagreement over the ultimate purpose of
RIAs have been evident in their
implementation. For those suggesting that RIAs
will do away with irrational or instinct-driven
policy-making, the annual reports by the UK
National Audit Office (NAO, 20042007, 2009)
provide for a good lesson in the limits of
technocracy in the face of democracy, with the
quality of RIAs showing substantial differences.
Political salience in particular seems to impact
considerably on the extent to which RIAs are
taken seriously, pointing to the unresolved
problem of trying to tie the concerns of liberal
democracy and responsive government to the
concerns of limiting government. Even well-
executed RIAs are not regarded as very effective
in challenging policy positions that departments
have adopted at earlier stages in the policy
making process (NAO, 2007).
Furthermore, the methodology how RIAs
are supposed to be put together has witnessed
considerable development towards ever-
growing complexification. Not unexpectedly,
there has been incremental criteria inflation
and a growth in RIA checkers. Early RIAs
concentrated on economic and small company
impact tests, since then criteria regarding
sustainability, gender and social cohesion were
added. The European Commissions impact
assessment regime has gone through recurring
reform waves that changed a fragmented system
of sectoral and largely unconnected patchworks
of impact tests (i.e. environment,
competitiveness) towards an integrated system
that prescribes the simultaneous assessment of
PUBLIC MONEY & MANAGEMENT MAY 2009
a range of criteria for all items of the
Commissions Legislative and Work Plan.
The UK impact assessment regime saw a
similar trend of criteria inflation, in particular
since the Labour governments post-1997 shift
towards a better regulation agenda. This
complexification has gone hand-in-hand with
renewed attempts at simplification. For
example, the recent addition of a requirement
to provide a one page summary of the
calculations of costs and benefits (on the Analysis
& Evidence page) was not accompanied by a
reduction in assessment criteria. Instead,
economic, social and environmental costs and
benefits need to be assessed, as monetized as
possible (Impact Assessment Guidance).
Attempts to reduce the administrative burden
of RIAs are unlikely to succeed as this would
require a prioritization of one set of factors
over others. Furthermore, complexification
offers convenient loopholes for discretionary
decision-making. As a result, it has become
increasingly unlikely that RIAs provide for
clear direction, especially as guidance material
lacks direction on how to balance competing
criteria and objectives.
Standard cost model (SCM)
The SCM has been a rallying point for those
regarding HQR as an agenda for deregulation.
Drawing on the perceived success of SCM in
the Netherlands, the idea of counting the
administrative cost of complying to regulation
was endorsed in the UK in 2005. Consultancy
reports and measurement initiatives were
rushed out. A damning report by the National
Audit Office reflected on creative compliance
and other problems of wrapping a method for
rough cost assessment into a language of a
precise measurement technology (such as
baseline measurement, reduction targets)
(NAO, 2008). The SCM has also been endorsed
as a key method for EU-level provisions and
has spread to supposedly reluctant countries,
such as Germany (see Wegrich, 2009).
The SCM seeks to assess the cost to business
in complying with information obligations
arising from regulation. However, the ambitions
of the SCM go further than reducing the
administrative burden of regulatory compliance
through a process of measuring the total
administrative cost of existing regulation and
then seeking to reduce this total. The SCM also
constrains policy formulation as the estimated
administrative costs of new regulations are
added to the total stock of administrative costs
of a department, an overall figure that is
supposed to be decreased. It has therefore also
2009 THE AUTHORS
JOURNAL COMPILATION 2009 CIPFA

become an established part of RIA procedures.
The disagreements about the SCMs
inherent purpose illustrate the plurality of
views that surround the HQR domain. The
evolution of the SCM interacted with RIAs by
offering a distinct deregulatory appeal (to C-
types) in contrast to the RIAs more
technocratic appeal (for A-types). Impact
assessments originated in distinct policy sectors,
for example, environmental impact
assessments, but RIAs became subsequently
associated with compliance costs ideas (indeed,
RIAs emerged from compliance cost
assessments in the UK which were regarded as
too narrow). However, since the mid- to late
1990s, the changing emphasis towards
regulatory quality meant that impact assessments
Downloaded by [University of North Texas] at 12:03 29 November 2014
developed into tools for evidence based policy-
(law)-making. The SCM marked a return to
ideas of regulatory burdens, especially in the
area of compliance. Crucially, however, it
concentrated on the administrative aspects of
regulatory compliance and not of regulation
itself, thereby avoiding conflict with those who
oppose HQR on the grounds of suspecting
pure deregulation motives.
At least two contrasting views exist
regarding the SCMs purpose. For some, the
focus on administrative costs is the main
rationale as it contributes a significant amount
to overall compliance costs (just how much is
impossible to assess given the lack of
measurement of overall compliance costs).
Others see the SCM as an initial step towards
reducing overall compliance costs (including
so-called policy costs). This deregulatory view
appears particularly prominent in the
Netherlands, where after an initial
concentration on reducing administrative cost
of compliance by 25% (between 2002 and 2007),
the following initiative was to reduce all
compliance cost. This move was interpreted as
a response to the lukewarm reception granted
to the initial SCM success by the Dutch business
communities.
Technocrats regard the introduction of
the SCM as the first step on a long march
towards comprehensive assessments of all costs
and benefits of regulations. Other technocrats
criticise the SCM for focusing on the cost side
only, selecting one type of costs for analysis
only (potentially not the most significant one),
while neglecting or crowding out more critical
issues. For example, in the cases of the
Netherlands, Denmark and Germany (since
2006) the endorsement of SCM meant that
attention and resources shifted away from wider
RIA initiatives (we do not, as yet, observe a
2009 THE AUTHORS
JOURNAL COMPILATION 2009 CIPFA
149
similar trend with the European Commission).
As a result, attempts at establishing RIAs across
federal departments in Germany (by
prescribing their utilization in the binding
procedural rules applying to all federal
government departments) have been frustrated
by departments as they decided to ignore these
rules. In contrast, the ex ante assessment of
administrative costs, as prescribed by the SCM,
was quickly adopted as a routine part of
departmental bill drafting activities.
Those regarding the SCM as an initial step
towards more far-reaching RIA initiatives view
Germany as having moved towards
institutionalizing comprehensive impact
assessment procedures. They point to the
positive image generated by the national
Normenkontrollrat that successfully overcame
departmental resistance and introduced the
SCM. However, whether the SCM and the
institutional role of the Normenkontrollrat
will survive the current grand coalition of
Christian and Social-Democrat parties is
questionable. Furthermore, any future
development of the SCM in German
government needs to resolve the conflict as to
whether the SCM is a technocratic solution that
will evolve into a comprehensive regulatory
impact assessment system, or whether the SCM,
following the Dutch example, will focus on
compliance cost and its reduction.
Overall, the invasion of the SCM in the
better regulation community signalled a move
to the deregulation approach towards
regulatory policy. But its future is less certain.
For some, the SCM is already yesterdays salad
since the downsides of its methodology have
become too evident. It relies on a rough
estimation of costs of complying with
information obligations in contrast to a
methodology that seeks to assess costs from the
perspective of business or citizens. As it is
increasingly evident that administrative burden
reduction according to the SCM is limited in
terms of the validity and comparability of the
data produced, the next initiative will inevitably
be launched. How such an initiative will be
formulated will depend on the relative strength
of the various HQR communities. At the EU
level, it appears that the technocratic idea of
HQR is particularly strong, the best bet in the
German case is a fading away of the HQR
agenda, given fierce departmental resistance
against cross-cutting policy initiatives.
In the UK, we predict a continued hunting
around between those that regard HQR as (C-
type) less regulation and those desiring more
(A-type) technocratic regulation-making. We
PUBLIC MONEY & MANAGEMENT MAY 2009
 150
therefore predict a limited life for the SCM:
The SCM will always disappoint deregulators,
as the measurement of administrative cost does
not provide for an attack on the whole of
regulation, and technocrats, because its
ambitions are too limited in generating rational
policy-making. Indeed, proposals regarding
regulatory budgets (BERR, 2008, p. 17) can
be understood as one key attempt to move
towards a more ambitious and wide-ranging
agenda, namely one that seeks to reduce the
cost of new regulation on business and third
sector organizations per se (as monetized in
impact assessments) and not merely the
administrative cost.
How HQR initiatives develop is not merely
a matter of the relative strength of the various
Downloaded by [University of North Texas] at 12:03 29 November 2014
views regarding HQR as illustrated in figure 1,
it is also an issue of organizational location of
HQR within the core executive.
Governance of HQR
If the core instruments of the international
HQR agenda are mired down by contested
views, then it is not surprising that advice
regarding the appropriate institutional position
of HQR initiatives has also remained vague.
The advice by the OECD (2005, p. 3) is that any
initiative requires sustained commitment from
the top, usually involving an adequately staffed
unit for better regulation at the heart of
government. Apart from the symbolic value of
such a location, this recommendation also
reflects the core problem of any attempt at
taking forward a HQR policy: there is no natural
support from policy departments in backing
cross-cutting issues, especially when these
emerge in the form of extensive procedural
rules that seem to muscle in onto departmental
turf (Wilson, 1989).
Debates regarding the location of special
units have been prominent in the UK, with the
initial deregulation unit moving from the then
Department of Trade and Industry to the
Cabinet Office where it went through different
incarnations (see Baldwin, 2005). It has since
moved back to the renamed Department for
Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform.
In Germany, responsibility for regulatory
quality has traditionally been distributed across
ministries, mainly the ministry for interior and
the economics ministry. In 2006, a better
regulation unit was established in the
Chancellors Office, which also hosts the
independent national Normenkontrollrata
watchdog, modelled on the Dutch example,
tasked to check departmental ex ante
measurements of administrative costs and to
PUBLIC MONEY & MANAGEMENT MAY 2009
advise government on better law-making.
At the EU level, the DG Enterprise has
established itself as the main administrative
backbone of a range of better regulation
initiatives. The Secretariat General is
responsible for the impact assessment system
and the supervision of DGs compliance
(supported by the Impact Assessment Board,
attached to the Secretariat General). The
strengthening of administrative and advisory
capacities in the Commission has addressed
the long standing lack of administrative
resources to monitor and support compliance
by DGs.
However, location and support from the
top are not everything. Agendas and concerns
by politicians at the top change and HQR can
hardly be expected to remain a personal priority
of leading government politicians over a longer
time period. Appointing regulation czars is
not the answer, as their authority to criticise
departments and ministers is closely tied to the
support and standing of their minister or
prime minister.
More important is the way through which
such a unit, wherever located, seeks to
persuade other departments and
governmental units to follow its agenda. One
perspective is to steer via hierarchical means
(as A-types would advocate). That is, to rely on
the setting of procedural standards, setting
targets, monitoring compliance, checking
administrative burden reduction plans and
instituting administrative sanctions. Such an
approach may conflict with constitutional
conventions (it would be in tension with the
constitutional departmental principle as one
of the three organizing principles for the
Federal Government), but continued oversight
is extremely costly and is likely to have a
detrimental effect on the motivation of policy-
making officials in departments. In other words,
HQR will become a matter of hitting targets or
creatively complying with exemptions.
A different (C-type) approach is to rely on
benchmarking, self-reporting and naming and
shaming. Again, the risk is that the race for
HQR will become one of creative benchmark-
hitting. The key concern regarding quality
should be a deep consideration of regulatory
purpose and technique rather than an over-
enthusiastic storming by targeting low
hanging fruit. A different approach to this
rivalry-driven approach to HQR is to rely on
mutual learning (a B-type perspective). That
is, to establish HQR watchers in each
department and to ensure that these
communicate and learn from each other. The
2009 THE AUTHORS
JOURNAL COMPILATION 2009 CIPFA

high-quality agenda, from that perspective, is a
process of mutual learning and not a process of
intervening into departmental turf by the
imposition of external criteria. However, such
a process is inherently limited if departmental
objectives conflict with those of the cross-cutting
HQR agenda, whether in terms of substantive
objectives or in terms of preferred policy style.
Finally, it could be argued that trying to
steer a government machinery is inherently
problematic (as D-types would suggest)
therefore ad hoc measures should be relied on,
and reliance should be placed on decentralized
activities within departments (pushed along by
their constituencies). This would avoid the
substantial costs incurred by a concerted HQR
agenda and the inevitable disappointments.
Downloaded by [University of North Texas] at 12:03 29 November 2014
We are not advocating one approach or tool
over another, but suggest that the contemporary
HQR discussion is flawed by an over-estimation
of the impact of technocratic ideas and an
under-estimation of the pre-requisites for
establishing mutual learning devices in a
political government setting.
What is the future?
Having concluded that the HQR agenda is
based on an appeal to contradictory views
regarding regulation, and that the assumptions
underlying the various tools and the
appropriate institutional structures are at best
contested, what is the future of the HQR
agenda? We offer three scenarios.
Under the first scenario, tombstones and ghost
cities, ambitious initiatives at the outset are
quickly forgotten as political agendas change.
Tombstones in the form of heaps of documents
and ghost cities in the form of long-forgotten
websites remain as monuments to past
initiatives, while disillusioned staff remain who
initially thought that HQR was a meaningful
exercise. As a result, subsequent initiatives to
improve the quality of regulatory policies are
likely to encounter reluctant cynicism. The
British government is arguably particularly
prone to a reform pattern in which enthusiastic
initiative launches quickly end up on the scrap
heap as bureaucratic careers and short-term
ministerial agendas promote the necessity to
make a point by launching an initiative in
order to be promoted elsewhere. The difficulties
of implementation are usually left behind.
A second scenario, codification, predicts the
development of ever more rigourous and
demanding procedures, objectives and checks
as a response to departmental reluctance. While
codification is likely to receive some
departmental response, in particular in terms
2009 THE AUTHORS
JOURNAL COMPILATION 2009 CIPFA
151
of developing a countervailing HQR
bureaucracy of process-tracers and checkers
inside departments, it is unlikely that the
administrative burden of such a scenario will
attract a wholehearted endorsement by
departments. Instead, within government there
will be functional differentiation across activities,
in particular departmental compliance units
will de-couple from real and increasingly
informal policy work.
The third scenario, embeddedness, embraces
differences of approach and of perspective.
HQR is about dealing with the problems of self-
referential regulatory domains that, on the one
hand, reject external top down advice, and,
on the other hand, are unlikely to pay any
attention to HQR on their own. To embed
HQR requires a basic level of tolerance and
acceptance of rival institutional positions and
of outlook (specialists, generalists and lay-
people). It also requires a hybrid approach
that draws on elements from across various
views noted above. That implies, first, a strong
encouragement towards mutual learning and
peer review in order to incorporate the thinking
in terms of HQR into the various policy sectors.
Second, it means encouragement, for example
through the use of transparency tools, such as
benchmarking, and some limited oversight.
Such a construction is difficult and hardly
follows the political logic of radical sounding
press releases. However, the HQR agenda
neither contains the tools nor essential shared
understandings to provide for the cure to bad
regulation (as hardly anyone will agree what
bad regulation is). In order to have an impact,
HQR is not so much about the application of
tools and institutional rearrangements, but it is
about encouraging conversations within and,
in particular, across regulated domains
(Black, 2002). It is only by becoming part of
the normal policy-making that HQR will
exist in terms of actual practice and not just
mere prescription.
References
Baldwin, R. (2005), Is better regulation smarter
regulation? Public Law, pp. 485511.
BERR (2008), Regulatory Budgets: A Consultation
Document (London).
Black, J. (2002), Regulatory conversations. Journal
of Law and Society, 29, 1, pp. 163196.
Black, J. (2005), The emergence of risk based
regulation and the new public risk management
in the UK. Public Law, pp. 512548.
Breyer, S. (1992), Breaking the Vicious Cycle: Toward
Effective Risk Regulation (Harvard University
Press, Cambridge, MA).
PUBLIC MONEY & MANAGEMENT MAY 2009
 152

Levy, B. and Spiller, P. (1994), The institutional
foundations of regulatory commitment. Journal
of Law, Economics and Organization, 10, 2, pp.
201246.
Lodge, M. (2005), The importance of being
modern. Journal of European Public Policy, 12, 4,
pp. 649667.
NAO (2004), Evaluation of Regulatory Impact
Assessments Compendium Report 2003-04. HC 358
20032004 (London).
NAO (2005), Evaluation of Regulatory Impact
Assessments Compendium Report 200405. HC
341 0042005 (London).
NAO (2006), Evaluation of Regulatory Impact
Assessments 20052006. HC 1305 20052006
(London).
NAO (2007), Evaluation of Regulatory Impact
Downloaded by [University of North Texas] at 12:03 29 November 2014
NAO (2008), The Administrative Burdens
Reduction Programme, 2008. HC 944 2007
2008 (London).
NAO (2009), Delivering High Quality Impact
Assessments, 2009. HC128 2008-2009 (London).
OECD (2005), OECD Guiding Principles for
Regulatory Quality and Performance (Paris).
OECD (2008), Brazil: Strengthening Governance
for Growth (Paris).
Radaelli, C. (2009), The political consequences
of Regulatory Impact Assessment. Seminar
paper, Governing the Regulatory State? (British
Academy, London, 15 January).
Wegrich, K. (2009), The Administrative Burden
Reduction Policy Boom: Comparing Mechanisms of
Diffusion. ESRC Centre for Analysis of Risk and
Regulation Discussion Paper 52 (LSE, London).

Assessments 200607. HC 606 20062007 Wilson, J. Q. (1989), Bureaucracy (New York,

(London). Basic Books).

THE OFFICIAL HISTORY OF

PRIVATISATION
VOLUME I
The formative years 19701987
Government Official History Series
David Parker, School of Management, Cranfield University, UK
Studying the background to privatisation, and the privatisations of the first two Thatcher
Governments from May 1979 to June 1987, this volume addresses a number of key
questions:
To what extent was privatisation a clear policy commitment within the Thatcher
Governments of the 1980s or did Government simply stumble on the idea?
2009 Why were particular public corporations sold early in the 1980s and other sales delayed
234x165: 632pp until well into the 1990s?
Hb: 978-0-415-46916-6 What were the privatisation objectives and how did they change over time, if at all?
55.00 How was each privatisation planned and executed, how were different City advisers
20% DISCOUNT: 44.00 appointed and remunerated, what precise roles did they play?
How was each privatisation administered; in what ways did the methods evolve and
change and why? How were sale prices determined?
Which government departments took the lead role; what was the input of the Treasury and
Bank of England; and what was the relationship between Ministers and civil servants?
The study draws heavily from the official records of the British Government to which the
author was given full access and from interviews with leading figures involved in each of the
privatisations including ex-Ministers, civil servants, business and City figures, as well as
academics that have studied the subject.

To take advantage of this exclusive 20% discount visit www.routledge.com/9780415469166

and input the discount code PRIVATISATION when prompted at the checkout.

2009 THE AUTHORS

PUBLIC MONEY & MANAGEMENT MAY 2009 JOURNAL COMPILATION 2009 CIPFA