Compliance, enforcement and appeals

It is not enough to improve regulations themselves, how they are designed and developed, and make them “smarter”. Available evidence and experience shows that how regulations are controlled and enforced is crucial to how the regulatory sphere in general affects businesses and the economy. Inspections and enforcement actions are generally the primary way through which businesses, in particular SMEs, “experience” regulations and regulators. Inadequate approaches or lack of changes in enforcement and inspections can mean that changes in regulations fail to deliver their full benefits. On the contrary, evolutions in inspections and regulatory delivery to make them more compliance-focused, more supportive and risk-based can all lead to real and significant improvements for economic actors, even within the framework of existing regulations. Finally, enforcement and inspections are as much about methods and culture as institutions, and as much about organisational mechanisms as legislation. All these need to change for outcomes to actually improve.