Beyond the rules: five tips for regulation that works

By Gráinne Moss, Secretary for Regulation and Chief Executive Ministry for Regulation

Introduction

Nearly three years into the Ministry’s work, one question comes up again and again, particularly from international colleagues: what have you learned about making regulation work better?

My answer is increasingly simple: good regulation is not just about writing good rules — it is about understanding how the whole regulatory system works for the people who have to navigate it.

From our experience so far, five lessons stand out.

1. Start with people’s experiences: not the rule

People and businesses don’t experience regulation one rule at a time. They feel the cumulative effect of multiple – sometimes overlapping – rules, regulations, and regulators.

So if you do nothing else, start with people’s experience.

That means understanding the whole regulatory environment they have to navigate. Look beyond government departments and agencies.

We used this approach to map New Zealand’s regulatory environment earlier this year.

Instead of looking at it from government’s point of view we flipped things and asked, “if a person or business wants to do something, who do they need approval or guidance from?”

The result was a much more complex picture of regulatory organisations, ranging from government to councils, to charities and companies that New Zealanders have to deal with every day to get things done.

Looking at regulation through the eyes of the person navigating it can reveal complexity that is almost invisible when you look agency by agency.

2. Focus on how rules work in practice

Changing the law doesn't necessarily change people’s experiences or deliver a better outcome.

Clear rules matter. But so does clear and consistent guidance — workable, approachable, and proportionate responses when compliance problems arise.

Our first regulatory review, into early childhood education, brought this home. We found that providers had to navigate layers of licensing requirements and guidance from multiple regulators. That made it harder to understand what was required and how to comply.

Our advice was to retain important protections while making rules and guidance clearer, better matching regulatory action to risk, and giving providers more help to get things right before problems arise.

Regulatory quality isn't just about the rule it is also about what happens when that rule meets the real world.

3. Make it easy to hear what isn't working

When we were established, we realised quickly that we needed an easy way for people to tell us about their regulatory issues.

We created the Red Tape Tipline – an online portal where anyone can tell us about a problem, so we can investigate whether regulation is part of the cause.

To date we've received more than 1,600 submissions, completed more than 200 targeted reviews, and provided ministers with close to 40 potential regulatory changes to consider.

Strikingly, eighty percent of the people who contacted us had not raised their concerns with another regulator or government agency.

That meant government wasn’t hearing about problems people were experiencing with regulation, including rules or processes that may no longer be fit for purpose.

So, if you want to know where regulation is creating unnecessary friction, make it easy for the people experiencing it to tell you.

4. Define the problem before choosing the solution

Not every complaint about regulation is always about the rule itself - getting to the right response to issues raised takes disciplined work to understand what’s really going on.

We use a framework to investigate what is happening, who is affected, and whether a reported problem lies in a rule, a regulatory process, or the way it is applied. 

That discipline helps us assess both existing requirements and proposals for new regulation. Sometimes the issue is not a regulatory one at all.

My fourth tip is: be clear about the problem, consider possible unintended consequences, and test whether regulation is the right response.

A clear problem definition gives you a basis for checking whether any changes have worked.

5. Match the fix to the problem

Not every problem needs a major legislative overhaul. Sometimes the best fix is clearer guidance, a better process, a time limited target, or a small change to existing rules.

And when rules do need to change, avoid locking in more detail than necessary.

You don’t need to try and future-proof regulation by writing every detail into law.

The more operational detail that is locked into primary legislation, the harder it can be for the regulatory system to respond as markets and technology change.

Our telecommunications review highlighted this challenge and recommended moving the methodology for industry levies from primary legislation into regulations, so the settings can adapt as new technologies and providers enter the market.

The goal shouldn't be to predict every future development.

My final tip: design regulatory systems capable of responding when the future arrives.

Where the rubber hits the road

There is one final lesson that sits across all five tips: a recommendation is not regulatory reform. Change only matters if it improves what happens in practice.

That means defining success, supporting agencies to implement changes, and continuing to assess whether those changes are delivering the intended result.

Which brings me back to where I started.

Better regulation starts and ends with the people who experience it.

The job is not simply to make better rules — it is to build regulatory systems that protect what matters, make it easier for people to do the right thing, remove unnecessary friction, and can adapt as the world changes.

That is the long game: fixing today’s problems while building a regulatory system capable of responding to tomorrow’s.