Annual report 2021

The Norwegian Better Regulation council – an important simplification measure

2021 was in many ways an important one for the Norwegian Better Regulation Council. We maintained a high activity level, producing statements and providing guidance, and we benefited greatly from leading the European Regulatory Scrutiny Board’s co-operation in RegWatchEurope. In June, the Storting discussed simplification measures for the business sector and, with broad political support, adopted the following:

“The Storting requests that the government set a target of a NOK 11 billion reduction in the business sector’s administrative costs related to rules and red tape imposed by the public sector by 2025.”

For a small, open economy such as Norway, ensuring good regulatory frameworks for the business community gives companies a key competitive advantage. We must constantly work to regulate the business community and adopt simplifications to ensure that Norwegian companies do not underperform in relation to their international competitors.

Evaluation

In 2021 KPMG began an evaluation of the Norwegian Better Regulation Council on behalf of the Norwegian Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries. The evaluation was presented in November 2021. It concluded that the Norwegian Better Regulation Council is a cost-effective measure for making everyday life easier for the Norwegian business sector and a tool for achieving the simplification goals set by the Storting.

Activities and results in 2021

The coronavirus pandemic continued to affect the Norwegian Better Regulation Council’s activities throughout 2021. We continued to make extensive use of remote working solutions and digital meetings. Producing statements was also our main priority throughout 2021, and we published nearly as many statements in 2021 as in 2020. Our international work was somewhat more resource-intensive than in previous years.

The Norwegian Better Regulation Council continues to prioritise competence-building and efficiency in the organisation, in addition to developing ever closer professional ties with international organisations and regulatory councils in other countries. This has laid the foundation for more thorough and efficient work when preparing each individual statement, and more consistent mapping of the more than 300 cases that are within the Council’s mandate.

Our studies, and the work we perform each year with respect to tracking all cases where we have issued statements, provide valuable information about developments in the quality of studies and reports on new regulations. This data provides a more complete picture of general development trends than the statement cases themselves. However, our statements delve much deeper into the individual proposals, and over time, they also provide a basis for examining development trends and changes. In addition, we regularly track cases where we have published statements.