7 April 2011

Red Tape Challenge Kicks Off

Members of the public, businesses and community organisations are being invited to give a real boost to growth and personal freedoms by ripping up some of the 21,000 rules that are getting in their way.The Red Tape challenge website will be launched on 7 April by the Prime Minister and Business Secretary Vince Cable. It will, for the first time, give the public a chance to have their say on regulations that affect their everyday lives; whether it's to speak up for well designed rules that are there to protect or challenge badly designed or badly thought through regulations that are an unnecessary burden.

The campaign is part of the Government's growth agenda and will tackle the stock of more than 21,000 statutory instruments that are currently putting barriers in the way of businesses, volunteers and the public. The first area of national life to go under the microscope will be retail. Following this, every few weeks a new set of regulations, organised around themes, will open on the website for anyone to comment on. Once a theme has closed to the public, the Prime Minister has said in a letter to all Ministers that they will have three months to explain why a regulation is still required, or it will be scrapped.

For each sector theme, there will also be an experienced 'sector champion' who will provide expert knowledge on the issues faced by those on the shop floor. The champion will act as an intermediary between the sector and Government and help to direct the web-based debates and discussions.

Cabinet Secretary Gus O'Donnell has written to all Permanent Secretaries across Government to ensure that civil servants understand that this is an opportunity to find creative ways of achieving policy goals without resorting to regulation.

The Red Tape challenge website is available here.