Evaluating Performance of Government Inspection Bodies: A Possible Approach

Ensuring the public safety and limiting administrative barriers have been the two core objectives of most reforms in the area of business inspections and regulatory enforcement for the past decade. However, measuring these efforts has proved quite challenging both in OECD countries and in Russia. Lack of attention to the results achieved or misinterpretation of progress may affect the success of the reform efforts. Th e objective of this paper is to develop a framework for defining and evaluating both the effectiveness and the efficiency of regulatory enforcement and to apply this framework to several areas of inspection activities (such as occupational and food safety) in Russia. Th e proposed framework advances the existing international approaches to measuring the performance of government inspection bodies and accounts for perspectives of citizens, businesses and governments as crucial stakeholders of inspection reforms. Th e paper is based on both qualitative and quantitative methods (sociological surveys and statistical research). Th e results suggest that evaluating the performance of business inspections should include all aspects of minimizing risks and losses in the controlled area - from prevention of violations (reducing risks) to ensuring the reimbursement, should the risk event happen. Various levels of results, including final outcomes (impact), intermediate outcomes and outputs, are needed as they allow for detecting important inconsistencies and gaps in the performance of government inspection bodies. Th e use of various sources of performance data, independent from inspection bodies, is critical for the successful implementation of the proposed framework.