By Nico Maffey
If you have ever felt frustrated working with slow and encumbered government structures, don’t despair! This blog, in combination with our one-page checklist will guide you through five easy steps that you can take to revolutionise governance and catalyze innovation in the public sector.
Why is it that a business can design, build, and launch a new product in a matter of months, but it takes government years to implement regulation changes? No matter how technologically advanced, experiencing frustration with the bureaucratic inefficiency of governments is a feeling common to citizens all around the world.
We live in a time when our daily lives are filled with enormous technological innovation and disruption. Even before the pandemic, regulators around the world were pressed to keep up with the opportunities and risks of new inventions, from telemedicine to fintech. Yet, some countries have remained more agile than others. An agile approach to regulation seeks to respond flexibly and facilitate rather than hinder innovation and disruption. Here are five steps that you can implement immediately in order to help transform your own organization:
Drive a Cultural Shift
Government officials are important players in policy development and enforcement, and thus hold the keys to innovation. Adopting and promoting a flexible and agile approach requires a fundamental change in mindset. Doing away with the status-quo or inertia-driven processes is only possible if regulators actively seek agile methods for transformation when developing regulation, as well as improving processes in the public sector.
Focus on outcomes rather than processes
How many times have we heard, “it’s a long process for this to get approved” or “it’s gonna take forever to get X done”. Oftentimes, bureaucracy is designed to ensure coordination among various government agencies. But those bureaucratic steps that regulations must follow can become irrelevant or obsolete as more efficient methods and practices arise. Think of how many governments still require physical signatures with the costs resulting in unnecessary delays and excessive paperwork that digital signatures could help avoid. Often the desired outcome for the government is clear: “We want to promote investment in the telecom sector to reduce cellphone costs for consumers.” However, the goal becomes hindered by the obscure and encumbered steps underlying the process, ultimately stifling innovation. Agile regulators are keen on designing outcome-focused regulatory regimes that encourage businesses to innovate.
Embrace testing and piloting policy
In the tech world, beta testing refers to an opportunity for real users to test a product in a production environment to uncover any bugs or issues before a general release. However, this approach is foreign to governments, which often seek to create perfect, immutable, and long-lasting public policies from the first try. Unsurprisingly, this approach is often unsuccessful, as technology often outpaces bureaucratic attempts to constrain it.
Agile regulators seek opportunities to launch, test, and continuously revise rulemaking. A good model of such an approach is the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority’s “regulatory sandbox,” in which regulators permit businesses to test novel products and processes for a trial period without subjecting them to certain regulatory requirements.
Work with, not against the experts
It’s often the case that as new technologies continue to develop, governments continue falling further behind in terms of technological expertise. Agile regulators seek to work with the private sector to understand the implications, concerns, and risks of regulations in areas of rapid technological innovation.
An example of this approach is the United Kingdom’s Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles, which has developed a code of practice to help steer the testing of self-driving vehicles without the need for constantly changing legislation, as the technology evolves by working in conjunction with the British Standards Institution on standards for self-driving vehicles.
Don’t forget about the citizens
Remembering that regulation is ultimately meant to benefit a country’s citizens is crucial to developing adaptable and timely regulatory policy. Sometimes government officials can become too focused on specific companies and technologies, rather than the impact that these may have on citizens if approved and developed.
Agile regulators should not only remember the importance of societal needs, but also actively seek to enhance citizen involvement in the design and implementation of rules for new technology.
Photo by ThisIsEngineering from Pexels
