Tiga has come out in support of the UK government’s proposal to introduce regulatory budgets for government departments, a measure designed to limit the cost of new regulations on businesses.

“The government’s proposal to introduce regulatory budgets for government departments is an innovative approach to controlling the problem of costly regulation,” said Tiga CEO Richard Wilson, who noted that the regulatory burden on business has “increased considerably in recent years”.

“As usual, the devil will be in the detail. For regulatory budgets to work the regulatory impact assessments for new regulations must be robust, indirect as well as direct costs should be included, regulatory budgets should be set on gross cost estimates and there could be a case for including the costs generated by independent regulators in departmental regulatory budgets.

“The games development sector would naturally like to see the costs of new employment regulations included in regulatory budgets. The cost of complying with the regulation and enforcement of the video games classification system might also merit inclusion within a department’s regulatory budget. The UK games development sector competes on quality, not price. Yet keeping the regulatory burden on business relatively light could help to attract inward investment into our sector and others.”

However, Wilson also said that curtailing and reducing the burden of regulation was ultimately a matter of political will, not budgetary process.

“The experience of the government’s golden rule illustrates that apparently hard budget rules can be bent. If regulatory budgets are to be effective, ministers must take full responsibility for any breaches in costs that occur. Individual departments and their ministers should be held to full account not just by the Better Regulation Executive and Parliament but also by the Prime Minister. Above all, Ministers must be committed to lightening the regulatory burden on business.”