UK claims millions saved by scrapping redundant regs

The government claimed today that its red tape reduction drive is already saving UK businesses £800m a year. The savings were detailed in a report which claimed the government is on the way to saving businesses and the third sector £3.5bn per year in admin costs by 2010. It details ways the government is cutting the burden on …

[Mark]

How about dropping redundant laws too?

It's supposed to be no defense, ignorance of the law, but when so many new ones are created, written in legalese (or as a set of legal-style patchsets on original documentation) and not exactly bruited about, how can we know what the law is?

How about dropping legislation that is unused, reviewing the laws that remain and printing them up PROPERLY so we, the people who are supposed to obey the law, know what it means.

Then we can do some weeding out by the process of "is this a stupid law? dump it" sorts of questions.

[Steve Oliver]

How about

a UK law Wiki?

Obviously only very very few people would have edit rights... but maybe a "rate this law" button would be interesting. Or even an "I've broken this law" button, which take the work out of catching the really very stupid crims.

[Colin Millar]

Capital Gains Tax

The CGT changes were part of the political beauty contest for the grasping middle classes. So we will encourage lots more people to tie up lots more money in domestic property for long periods of time - and to compensate for these vast resources being pulled from the money supply we'll take some money off people who might have used it to do some business and issue everyone else with another credit card.

I bet most of the regulations that are pulled are the ones that are difficult to enforce therefore regularly ignored.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sing if you've broken the law

It wasn't me. I didn't mean to click the button, but the cat scrambled over the keyboard!

Interesting point about property investments, Mr Millar. A lot of noise is talked about how much individual debt we, when aggregated as a society, are carrying. It might be interesting to see how that compares with individual assets, on an aggregate basis...

[Anonymous Coward]

Money Money Money

"releasing 60,000 firms from the obligation to appoint a company secretary. That last one apparently saves British businesses £450,000 a year – overall sadly, not each."

£450000 / 60000 = £7.50 each.

Don't spend it all at once.

[Rich]

I see

"The government claimed today that its red tape reduction drive is already saving UK businesses £800m a year"

Ah, so that's another £800m the gov will be able to extort from us all in tax every year then :-)

(I wish I was joking)

[Steve Evans]

@Rich

... another £800m the gov will have to extort from us and then post to Brussels!

[Anonymous Coward]

For every pound they save ...

They will spend another £2 setting up watchdogs to make sure that businesses are taking advantages of the "savings" they've just been given.

If they really wanted to save businesses money, they would replace the Data Protection Act (and its requirement to register and a load of other paperwork) with a series of simple but binding rules about what information you can keep and make it the same for every company no exceptions, prohibit ALL direct or indirect marketing (including "records checking" and other guises to make unsolicited nuisance calls) unless the recipient has specifically ASKED for it.

[Harry Stottle]

Is there anything remotely resembling "Evidence"?

Or are we just supposed to take their word for this spectacular success?

[Anonymous Coward]

Millions saved?

Oh! You mean *money*! That's a disapointment.

Oh, and... the "I've broken this law" button. I thought that was what mobile-phone cameras and You Tube were for?

[Anonymous Coward]

WHAT!

I hope this won't affect the editorial quality of [el] regs.

[brian]

How about....

Passing less stupid laws in the first place....

Idiots

[Bruce]

press release authorised by

The Department of Redunancy Reduction Department

I'd get my coat, but I can't find the form I filled out...

[lglethal]

Re: How about dropping redundant laws too?

They've already started working on the Data Protection Act. I mean once everyone's details are made available to the public by one government department or other "losing" them then there will be no need for the data Protection Act or the Privacy Act!

Think of the money saved when companies no longer have to worry about privacy or protecting your data! And think of the money the government will save not having to police the private sector or cover up the mistakes of the public sector!

It's Win-Win! Just wait for those ID cards to come...

[Anonymous Coward]

7.50 GBP saved by losing a secretary!?

Jesus, I thought I was underpaid... :)