Better Regulation: supporting economic growth and investment

Annex A – The Scottish Government’s Approach to Regulation

Guiding Principles

Our work is grounded in the five core principles of Better Regulation:

• Proportionality: Regulatory actions, interventions, and remedies should be legitimate, necessary, and proportionate to the scale of the policy challenge.
• Consistency: A common, joined-up approach should be applied to promote fairness and a level playing field for all.
• Accountability: Decisions and processes should be transparent, justifiable, and subject to public scrutiny.
• Targeting: Regulation should be focused on cases where action is needed in order for levels of risk to be tolerable.
• Transparency: Clear definitions, effective communication, and clear explanations should always be used.

Regulation which imposes costs and burdens on businesses, people and organisations should be a last resort.

We expect alternative, non-regulatory options, which have the potential to deliver the same positive outcomes, to have been considered and exhausted before adopting a regulatory approach.

A decision to regulate should be taken after careful consideration of the available evidence of potential impacts (direct or indirect; positive or negative) and via engagement with people, businesses and organisations who may be affected.

The costs and burdens imposed by regulation need to be proportionate to the problem or issue it seeks to address, with relative impacts also considered e.g. on small businesses or organisations.

Our approach to designing regulation should be risk-responsive and targeted – focusing on the greatest potential benefit with the least potential risks or negative impacts. Where possible, negative impacts should be mitigated through the policy process.

How do we regulate?

We discuss early and work transparently and collaboratively with those likely to be impacted by the regulation to minimise unnecessary costs and burdens; and to design regulation that is effective, efficient, and simple to understand, implement, and enforce.

The evidence base on which a decision to regulate has been taken should be published (unless reasons of public safety or commercial confidentiality prevent this).

We ensure that regulation is evaluated and kept under regular review (including considering the use of ‘sunset’ or ‘review’ clauses in the regulation itself) to assess its continued effectiveness and efficiency in delivering the desired outcomes, whilst minimising unnecessary costs and burdens for businesses and consumers. This helps keep regulations up to date, flexible and useful.

We work with stakeholders to ensure effective engagement, communication, implementation, and guidance.

We work to align regulators around shared purposes and priorities, particularly around how regulations are applied, improving the sharing of best practice and learning, and ensuring that user experience for businesses, organisations and individuals continues to be a central focus.

Enforcement of regulation should be risk-focused, with priority given to tackling deliberate non-compliance and to providing information/ support to those inadvertently non-compliant.