Full report (pdf - 1148KB) - National Audit Office

Appraisal and sustainable development 19and final proposals, and are subject to review by the Regulatory PolicyCommittee. Business cases, on the other hand, are often not published andconsider a range of sensitive issues such as the extent of risk involved from amanagerial and operational perspective. Tax information and impact notes, incontrast to both the impact assessment and business case processes, do notconsider a range of options and are relatively limited in the extent of theinformation disclosed. Neither business cases nor tax information and impactnotes have a requirement for independent external review, although businesscases for major projects may be reviewed by the Major Projects Authority.d. The impact assessment process and business case process can be difficult toapply to assessing the impact of wide-ranging changes to a policy landscape.For example, impact assessments of the costs and benefits of strategicmeasures such as the Climate Change Act 2008 require very high levelappraisal, which may be informed by general findings from scientific research,international concerns over impacts, and by the potential for technologicaldevelopments and the associated economic benefits they might bring.e. The policy development process can be incremental, with strategic decisionstaken early on in a policy development process and more detailed policydeveloped subsequently. Impact assessments of early strategic level decisionswill be high level. Impact assessments of later decisions may not address theoriginal alternatives. This can result in a policy measure developing from initialintentions and the final assessment of its net present value not beingcomparable with initial estimates for alternative options. Departments' reviewprocesses will need to consider whether there have been underlying changeswhich mean earlier decisions need to be revisited alongside do nothingalternatives before final decisions are taken.f. The Regulatory Policy Committee’s remit does not extend to the coverage of allnew regulation. This is because the better regulation process excludes nonregulatoryproposals which have no direct impact on businesses, regulatoryproposals put forward by regulators such as Ofcom or Ofgem, proposals withcost impacts on the public sector of less than £5 million, and proposals whichinvolve minor amendments to existing regulations. The Better RegulationExecutive's public database is of departments' Impact Assessments, and doesnot support analysis of the number of impact assessments which relate to theimplementation of EU regulations, or the scale of the costs and benefits coveredby the recorded impact assessments.g. The Regulatory Policy Committee's role was created with a view to assessingregulatory costs on business. While it assesses impact assessments againstthe Better Regulation Executive's guidance, it has no specific role for examiningother issues addressed within impact assessments, such as social andenvironmental impacts.