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IT'S a funny thing, but the more the Government tries to cut red tape and bureaucracy, the more bureaucracy it seems to create. This is apparent from the website of the Better Regulation Executive ( http://bre.berr.gov.uk ), which sits within the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. Describing itself as 'a dynamic force in government', the executive says it 'works across government to reduce and remove unnecessary regulation for the public, private and voluntary sectors'; it also plays an active role in promoting the better regulation agenda in Europe.
As part of this process, government departments and agencies are required to publish 'annual rolling Simplification Plans', identifying ways in which they can cut red tape and make savings against measurable targets and showing how these reductions can be achieved. The website boasts that, by December 2007, 20 government departments and agencies had produced and updated their simplification plans, and that the total number of simplification measures had increased to over 700 compared with 500 in 2006. It also estimates that, by 2010, total savings of £7 billion can be achieved. All this is clearly very worthy, but it does sound rather bureaucratic for an organisation designed to cut red tape.
As a government department, defra is not immune from this initiative and, having published its first simplification plan in...