Complying with regulation : business perceptions survey 2009

The Administrative Burdens Reduction Programme aims to reduce by a quarter by 2010 the cost to business of complying with the administrative burdens imposed on them by government regulations.

The Programme is part of the government's overall agenda to simplify regulation and improve the regulatory environment.

Whilst businesses are reporting that individual aspects of complying with regulation have become less burdensome over the last year, and there has been some improvement in overall business perceptions of regulation since 2007, very few regard complying with regulation as having become easier or less time-consuming.

Around a third said that it had become worse. Over 60 per cent of businesses surveyed consider that the administration needed to demonstrate compliance with regulations is an obstacle and only one per cent of businesses felt that complying with regulations had become less time consuming in the last year.

In addition, less than a third of businesses said that government understood business well enough to regulate it. The survey has found that businesses' perceptions of regulations are influenced by concerns about the introduction of new regulations or continuing changes to existing regulations - 95 per cent of businesses reported that having to keep up to date with changes in existing regulations had not improved or had become more time consuming in the past year.