The Handbook on Designing and Implementing RIA Systems is intended to assist Commonwealth governments in designing and implementing programmes of Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) across multiple regulatory institutions. It identifies major risk factors that have led to failure of RIA programmes in other countries and suggests options that countries should consider to reduce the risks of failure. It is impossible to reduce risks to zero, but this Handbook will help increase the probability that RIA programmes will, in the end, improve the quality of government policies.
Since 1980, RIA has been one element in the rapid development of the craft of good regulation, one of the distinguishing characteristics of modern public management. RIA has become, like budgeting, one of the essential systems of governance. RIA, in turn, is a key tool of the larger ‘better regulation’ toolbox that has been widely adopted around the world. Canada, for example, calls the broader regulatory quality system the ‘regulatory life cycle approach’. Most Commonwealth countries have yet to adopt an RIA system, although several Commonwealth countries are among the best in the world in carrying out RIA.
There is no single model for an effective RIA system. Every RIA system in the world has been customised and adapted to the administrative and political reality in that country. The over-use of models from other countries that are exported to the reforming country should be avoided, as this increases the risks of failure compared to a system that is customised. Regulatory reform is highly contextual and should be tailored to suit existing government structures.
