The institutional landscape of regulatory policy and oversight

The institutional setup for regulatory policy and oversight is a key enabler of effective regulatory frameworks. Oversight mechanisms are essential to bridge the gap between the establishment of formal requirements for using regulatory management tools and their implementation in practice. While most countries have invested in regulatory oversight in line with the 2012 Recommendation of the Council on Regulatory Policy and Governance at least to some extent, institutional mandates vary widely across the OECD membership. In many countries, several bodies share oversight responsibilities and the organisation of regulatory oversight differs importantly across jurisdictions. With a view to clarify how regulatory oversight is carried out across countries, this chapter provides a descriptive overview of the institutional landscape for regulatory policy with a specific focus on regulatory oversight and quality control arrangements. It is based on a new data collection and case studies and lays the ground for further analytical work on the performance of regulatory oversight.