Regulators can do more for small business - Productivity Commission

 Regulators can do more to reduce the compliance and enforcement burdens they impose on small businesses, according to a report released by the Productivity Commission.

The Commission argues that regulators should ensure they understand how regulation impacts on small business and keep the compliance capacity of small businesses at the forefront of their minds.

The report proposes a suite of changes which need to be implemented by Commonwealth, State and Territory, and local governments:

• Regulators should communicate with small businesses with a focus on the brevity, clarity and accessibility of information and use associations to disseminate information.
• Compliance and enforcement strategies should be proportionate to risks posed to communities and facilitate voluntary compliance.
• Regulators should commit publicly to target timeframes for key processes, report on their performance in meeting targets, and consider other measures to improve timeliness.
• Regulators should have access to a sufficient range of enforcement tools and be resourced to do their job effectively, to avoid the shifting of direct and indirect costs onto businesses.