LOCAL Enterprise Partnerships could be handed a role in reducing the burden of regulation on business.
Business and enterprise minister Mark Prisk included the idea in a range of proposals he said were aimed at developing a “more mature relationship” between the private sector and regulators.
He suggested LEPs could bring firms and regulators together to help make locally enforced rules and regulations more transparent.
Other measures included a greater use of industry-led bodies setting professional standards and more straightforward guidelines to make it easier for small businesses to stick to the rules.
Mr Prisk said: “We understand that Britain’s businesses need to concentrate on what they do best – growing their business, creating jobs and driving forward economic recovery.
“We have made good progress already, reducing the impact of red tape on businesses through the radical system of one-in, one-out, the three-year micro-business moratorium and the red tape challenge – a wholesale review of the entire stock of regulation.
“But when regulation becomes heavy-handed, inefficient, prescriptive and risk-averse, it drags down the ability of businesses to grow, prosper and create jobs.
“The challenge is to transform the regulatory landscape so that the system delivers essential protections whilst avoiding unnecessary interference in the day to day work of hard-working business people seeking to innovate and grow and thereby delivering the jobs and wealth we need.”
He was speaking at the Local and National Regulators annual conference.
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