Section 67: Primary authorities
446.Sections 67 and 68 make amendments to provisions contained in Part 2 of the Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Act 2008 (“RESA 2008”). Those provisions, introduced as a response to the Hampton Review, Reducing Administrative Burdens: Effective Inspection and Enforcement published in March 2005(9), sought to promote co-ordination of regulatory enforcement amongst local authorities by establishing the Primary Authority Scheme (“PAS”).
447.Until 1 April 2012 the PAS was administered by the Local Better Regulation Office (“LBRO”), a statutory corporation created by the RESA 2008. On that date the Local Better Regulation Office (Dissolution and Transfer of Functions, Etc.) Order 2012 (SI No. 246 of 2012) dissolved LBRO and its functions in relation to the PAS were transferred to the Secretary of State.
448.The PAS enables a business trading across local authority areas to form a primary authority partnership with a single local authority in relation to regulatory compliance across all the local authority areas in which it operates. Through the partnership the business receives advice on compliance from the primary authority which other local authorities who regulate it must follow. This provides the business with certainty and consistency.
449.Section 67 amends section 22 of the RESA 2008 to broaden the eligibility requirements for the PAS.
450.Under the existing PAS a person is eligible only if they carry out an activity in the area of 2 or more local authorities, and each of those authorities has the same relevant function in relation to that activity. For example a business would be eligible where it sells a product in two different local authorities’ areas and is subject to regulatory enforcement by trading standards in both those authorities’ areas. The intention behind the amendments is to extend the PAS to businesses who share an approach to regulatory compliance, such as the members of a trade association, even if not all of them operate in the area of more than one local authority.
451.Subsection (4) inserts new subsections (1A) and (1B) into section 22 of the RESA 2008. These mean that a person is also eligible for the PAS if the Secretary of State is satisfied that they share an approach to regulatory compliance in relation to an activity with at least one other person and between them those persons are regulated, as regards the activity, by more than one local authority.
452.This means, for example, that where a number of members of a trade association are small businesses operating from single stores they could all be eligible for the PAS if the effect of their arrangements with their trade association meant that they shared an approach to compliance in relation to the same activity with other members operating in different local authority areas. Those arrangements might be, for example, that the trade association provides its members with regulatory guidance.
453.Those members of the trade association who had multiple sites across different local authority areas would be eligible for the PAS without needing to satisfy the conditions in new subsection (1B) because they would already come within the test in section 22(1) of the RESA 2008. However, the conditions in new subsection (1B) have deliberately been made fairly wide in order that, continuing with the above example, members of the trade association may apply to join the PAS on the basis of guidance from their association that is applicable to all of its members, without having to distinguish between members who do and do not happen to satisfy the existing eligibility test in section 22(1) of the RESA 2008.
454.Subsection (5) amends section 22(2) of the RESA 2008 to include a provision that the Secretary of State may publish guidance about the matters likely to be taken into account when deciding whether two or more persons share an approach to compliance for the purposes of new subsection (1B)(b) .
455.Subsections (6) and (7) make necessary consequential amendments.
