10 Monitoring, evaluation and review
RIA must establish the agency's plans for monitoring, evaluating, and reviewing the performance over time. The key questions are:
- How will the Agency determine when and whether the regulatory changes have performed well?
- How will the Agency assess whether the preferred option continues to have a greater net-benefit than alternatives?
While the plans for monitoring the implementation of the preferred option should be summarised in the RIS, it is also important that any new regulation is monitored and periodically reviewed to evaluate whether the option is the preferred solution to the particular policy problem over time. Such monitoring and evaluation helps to ensure that new regulations are working as expected (delivering the anticipated benefits at expected costs), that there have been no unforeseen consequences and they continue to be necessary as circumstances change and evolve.
When new regulatory options are being proposed, it is important to have a clear understanding of the channels through which the intervention is expected to generate the intended benefits. Analysis needs to consider how effectiveness will be measured: what indicators will be used; what data will be required; how this information will be collected, and by whom. As noted above, monitoring and evaluation involves costs, which should be factored in to the analysis of options.
On-going or periodic consultation with stakeholders may be appropriate, in which case the arrangements for this should be agreed. It may be appropriate to establish a feedback mechanism (eg, a way for stakeholders to ask questions or lodge complaints). Regular, public reporting on the effectiveness of the regulation may also be considered.
Plans should also be made for how and when the regulation will be reviewed. Agencies should consider committing to a periodic review of particular regulatory interventions, either through a sunset-review clause in the regulation itself, or through committing to collect and monitor information for evaluating regulatory performance. Reviews should be reported and consulted on with a view to ensuring regulation remains fit for purpose.
Reviews should consider the following issues:
- Is there still a problem (and is it the one originally identified)?
- Are the objectives being met?
- Are the impacts as expected? Are there any unforeseen problems? Are there any indirect effects that were not anticipated?
Is intervention still required? Is the current intervention still the most appropriate, or would another measure be more suitable?
