Welcome to the RPC website

The Regulatory Policy Committee (RPC), established in 2009, is tasked with providing for the first time in the UK, independent scrutiny of proposed regulatory measures put forward by Government.  Our role is to challenge where proposals are not supported by robust evidence and analysis.

Our role is not to comment on the underlying policy objectives of government, but rather to ensure that when ministers make decisions on proposed new regulations, they do so against the background of a robust, evidence-based policy making process.  We do this by feeding our Opinion on the impact of new regulatory proposals directly into the Cabinet decision making process.

This is so that, in making their decisions on new regulatory proposals, Ministers should be satisfied that the risks have been properly considered, that the different options and the associated costs and benefits have been identified and set out, and that the wider impact of the proposed legislation has been considered.  Our role is to review and publicly challenge those who regulate when this is not the case.

We are not restricted to looking at administrative burden reductions, issues relating to public risk, or specific areas of legislation.  Rather, we consider the full range of issues associated with regulatory design, including all costs and all benefits (i.e. economic, social and environmental).