Report

Over ruled

This report from UK think tank Re:State offers a practical blueprint for managing Britain’s regulatory institutions as a system for the long term.

The UK has more than 100 statutory regulators, yet no single institution is responsible for managing them as a coherent system. Successive governments have created new regulators to address individual failures, but have paid little attention to how these decisions affect the wider landscape. The result is growing fragmentation, overlapping responsibilities, duplicated requirements, and increasing costs for businesses, regulators, and taxpayers alike. Governments of all political persuasions have recognised these problems and periodically attempted to simplify the landscape through mergers and abolitions. Yet these efforts have consistently failed to deliver lasting change. New regulators continue to be created, while there is no permanent mechanism for overseeing the regulatory system as a whole or preventing unnecessary institutional growth.

‘Over ruled: why Britain has too many regulators and what to do about it’ argues that government should move beyond occasional “bonfires of the quangos” and instead embed continuous management of the regulatory landscape into the machinery of government. The report recommends establishing a new Regulation Unit within the Cabinet Office to oversee the creation, consolidation and abolition of regulators; introducing much stronger tests before new regulators can be established; and implementing a rolling programme of sector-by-sector reviews to identify overlapping responsibilities, reduce duplication, and simplify regulatory landscapes over time.

Together, these reforms would create a regulatory system that is simpler, more coherent, and easier for businesses to navigate, while strengthening regulatory effectiveness and accountability. Rather than pursuing periodic restructuring exercises, the report offers a practical blueprint for managing Britain’s regulatory institutions as a system for the long term.