Business Impact Assessment
Business Impact Assessment
Another work focus of business facilitation is to encourage bureaux and departments (B/Ds) to assess the business impact before introducing new regulatory/licensing requirements so as to better take into consideration the operational circumstances and capacity of the trades and understand the costs associated with compliance of the regulatory requirements.
Through conducting business impact assessments (BIAs), B/Ds can grasp the concerns and compliance difficulties of the affected trades in complying with the regulatory proposals which will facilitate the B/Ds to enhance or fine-tune their regulatory proposals so as to avoid the introduction of unreasonable regulatory or licensing requirements and reduce the compliance cost without compromising public interests.
Business Impact Assessment Framework and tasks under different stages
The Government has developed a BIA framework to provide general guidelines to B/Ds to facilitate their systematic assessment of the business impact of their regulatory proposals on the business environment.
The different tasks under the different stages of the BIA Framework are depicted below –
Stage 1: Review of Government Intervention & Options
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Understand problem, desired outcome and regulatory proposal
Review rationale for government intervention
Conduct research on overseas best practices and international standards
Identify options (e.g. non-regulatory option)
Stage 2: Assessment of Business Environment
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Analyse industry / business structure and value chain
Assess affected business segments
Identify major business stakeholders groups
Design business consultation
Stage 3: Business Impact Assessment
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Conduct business consultation
Assess benefits to business, compliance difficulties, cost of compliance and administrative burden
Assess impact on competition and small and medium-sized firms
Identify important issues from an industry perspective that the Government needs to consider or address. Identify key challenges faced by the industry on compliance issues and any unintended consequences
Stage 4: Consolidation of Assessment Results / Recommendations
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Consolidate analysis of impact assessment findings
Propose changes to regulatory proposal (including recommendations on mitigation measures, enforcement strategy and approach, and monitoring and evaluation mechanism)
Business Compliance Cost (BCC) Framework
In addition, the Government has developed the Business Compliance Cost (BCC) Framework for assessing the additional compliance cost to be incurred from the regulatory proposals to facilitate B/Ds to estimate the BCC in a systematic and consistent manner.
An overview of the BCC Framework is as follows -
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