MINISTRY OF ECONOMY Guidelines for the Regulation Impact Assessment
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Tip: the size of an enterprise has a major effect on how high the regulation cost is.
OECD surveys show that companies employing up to 19 workers pay regulation costs
per one worker three times higher than companies employing 20 to 49 workers, and
over five times higher than those employing 50-500 employees.
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• Will the option increase the complexity of administrative
procedures?
In order to demonstrate whether the obligation is being cancelled or
enhanced, we need to consider:
• How will the group of subjects that have to fulfil this reporting
obligation change?
• How will their manner of fulfilling this obligation change?
If it is necessary to provide some information or carry out some other
action by the subjects covered by the regulation, we should consider
whether the form of this action is not too inconvenient or, perhaps it
would do just to supplement the existing procedures by components
guaranteeing the provision of such information.
• How will the number of required actions change?
When designing the proposed regulation, we must consider the
necessity to undertake—by enterprises or other subjects covered by the
regulation—specific actions connected with providing information; is
the required information needed by administrative authorities, can it be
obtained from other sources? We have to check whether the same or
similar information obligation has been prescribed by other legal
regulations or perhaps it is not required by other institutions. There may
exist registries, data bases, archives containing the information required.
•
Will the frequency of fulfilling this obligation change?
We must also analyse and establish when and how often the enterprises
and other subjects involved will submit their reports, whether it fits in
their internal information production cycle. Both processes, production
of data inside the company and its delivery, should be timed to ensure
fulfilling the information obligations with the least inconvenience for
the company.
It is good to consult the above issues with subjects to be covered by the
regulation. Their ideas may turn out the best possible solutions available
at the given situation.
If the analysis of all the above-mentioned components suggests the
necessity to put some reporting obligations on enterprises, we must
ensure the least inconvenient form to this process. If forms to be filled
out are to be used, their authors must carefully design them allowing for
such aspects, as the time needed to complete a questionnaire, clear
wording of the questions, and low questionnaire frequency. If the
reporting obligation cannot use questionnaire forms, the least
inconvenient form of delivering, processing, and storing information
must be designed and computer technologies should be employed.
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Source: OECD, Business Views on Red Tape (OECD, Paris: 2001) page 8