Productivity, regulation and resources
Oh, the bonfire of the red tape rears its head again. We are told that the problem to our dragging productivity - the sea anchor holding us back from boldly and swiftly 'growing the pie' - lies with excessive regulation. At the risk of sounding like a definite greybeard, there is no doubt that - since I started out in work twenty-one years ago - the amount of regulation and due process we work under has increased. A planning application used to be a hand-filled form and a handful of drawings, not reports on everything from contaminated land to light pollution. To discharge planning conditions requires even more. To lay a sewage pipe or connect to the electricity grid requires a forest of forms and permits. There are licensing requirements for everything from A-boards to hanging baskets. Red tape gone mad! Well, not so fast. It is in the public interest to control whether a new building - or even a house extension - will cause harmful impacts to the environment. A wheelchair us