The Regulators’ Forum is a unique initiative to bring together academics and practitioners in the field of regulation to share insights and lessons regarding contemporary regulatory challenges. Contemporary regulation often takes places within distinct policy domains, with little opportunity to draw on cross-sectoral experiences. CARR’s Regulators’ Forum, supported by LSE’s Knowledge Exchange initiative, seeks to provide for a setting for structured themes about key themes in regulation.
What are the challenges of risk-based and responsive enforcement strategies? How do different regulators deal with these challenges, how do they combine different inspection strategies, and what is the impact of austerity on enforcement practices? These were the themes of the first meeting of the Regulators' Forum.
Discussion summary Inspection and Compliance
How problematic are emerging risks for regulators? How can they be identified and communicated? How can emerging risks be incorporated in the day-to-day practices? These were the key questions considered during the meeting of the Regulators’ Forum.
Discussion summary Emerging Risks
How difficult is it for regulators to manage and measure performance? This challenge has become increasingly pertinent as regulators are said to be under growing pressure to account for and justify their performance. What is the purpose of performance management? What are the ways in which performance is being measured? And how can behaviour distortions be avoided? This meeting of the Regulators’ Forum addressed these questions.
Discussion summary Regulatory Performance
What are seen as regulatory failures? What are different types and causes for regulatory failure? And how can regulators manage failure, both in the short-term and the long-term? These were the questions that featured in this meeting of the Regulators’ Forum. It highlighted the various causes for failure, as well as the problems of managing a crisis in view of dispersed responsibilities.
Discussion summary Managing Regulatory Failure
How do regulators deal with cross-jurisdictional issues? How do they adjust to the demands stemming from different national approaches, whether in the context of UK-devolution or relationship with local authorities, EU membership or wider international commitments? How can regulators remain informed about wider developments? How can they influence other regulators’ activities and how can issues of co-ordination be addressed, for example, in terms of information exchange, consistency in decision-making, or in ensuring that responsibilities are clearly assigned?
Discussion summary Transboundary Regulation
One key claim is that participation enhances both the quality of regulatory decision-making and the legitimacy of regulatory decisions. How to ensure such participatory processes has proven far more difficult. There are issues about the timing of stakeholder engagement, about different rationales for engagement, about who the most relevant stakeholders are, about the appropriate technologies and venues for engagement, as well as about the extent to which regulators should be responsive to stakeholders’ perspectives.
Discussion summary Engaging with Stakeholders
How can regulators evaluate their performance? What are the questions that tools to guide evaluation exercises should ask? Is it even possible to develop a toolkit to support strategic and operational decision-making?
Discussion summary Assessment Tools for Regulators
What represents ‘value for money’ in regulation?. In an age, where regulators have to justify their activities and, in some cases, their overall existence, there have been increased calls for highlighting the ‘value for money’ of regulation. While ‘value for money’ is a well-established term, it raises particularly tricky issues for regulation, whether in terms of methodology, information, or attribution.
Discussion summary Value for Money in Regulation
How can regulators encourage innovation? Several regulators are required, by statutory objective, to promote competition and, in the UK, there will be an obligation for all regulators to promote economic growth. So how can regulatory agencies ensure that innovation enhances competition and consumer choice without being seen to ‘pick winners’ and risking the downgrading of regulatory standards?
Discussion summary Regulation and Innovation
