Increasing the transparency of inspections, reducing the burden on scrupulous business owners, and improving the process of appealing against illegal actions of inspectors.
This is the aim of changes in inspection legislation presented in the draft law “On Basic Principles of State Supervision (Control)” developed by the Ministry of Economy together with BRDO experts, with the participation of the State Regulatory Service of Ukraine and with the support of the USAID Ukraine Competitive Economy Program.
One of the key changes is that the inspection duration will depend not on the enterprise size, but its risk level. In such a way, inspectors will be able to inspect high-risk enterprises more thoroughly and not to overburden low-risk enterprises with excessive inspections. At the same time, restrictions on the maximum duration of inspections of small and micro enterprises are still valid: regardless of their risk level, they can be inspected for no more than 5 days.
“The current state supervision (control) system is built in such a way that its actions are aimed primarily at identifying violations and applying sanctions to business entities. Due to the quick changes in legislation, the lack of information in the required time, as well as the lack of effective dialogue between businesses and state supervision (control) bodies, this system rather looks punitive. Our task is to transform it from punitive to the preventive and service one.
Drafting the law, which introduces a new version of the Law “On Basic Principles of State Supervision (Control)” aimed at creating a preventive and risk-oriented state supervision (control) system, will reduce the regulatory burden on scrupulous business owners and introduce additional tools to ensure citizens’ rights to a safe environment,” the Director of the Entrepreneurship and Regulatory Policy Department of the Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture of Ukraine Oleksandr Palazov said.
Newly established entrepreneurs will have the right to apply to regulatory authorities for voluntary free of charge audits. Such an inspection will not provide for sanctions in case of violations, but in the case of a positive inspector’s opinion, it will reduce the frequency of scheduled control measures for such a business entity. At the same time, if entrepreneurs are more comfortable interacting with independent non-governmental accredited organizations, they can apply to them for a paid audit. The positive results of such an audit will also reduce the frequency of scheduled inspections.
“Many aspects of inspections are digitized. Each business entity will have access to an e-cabinet where all inspection data will be provided. They will be able to get more information, address the authorities or appeal against the actions electronically,” the Acting Chairman of the State Regulatory Service of Ukraine Oleh Miroshnychenko said.
Additionally, the draft law introduces the possibility for all participants (both businesses and inspectors) to start using a unified electronic system of interaction. The document expands the list of information that the regulatory authority should enter into its e-cabinet on the Inspection Portal (pilot module of the legal system for businesses, where all the information about state inspections is available). This allows us to automate a larger amount of processes and access a wider range of inspection status data.
“Today, this is something everyone requires: business owners who need to be able to protect themselves from illegal actions of inspectors; consumers who need to know how many violations have been identified by regulatory authorities in a particular store or kindergarten; the inspectors themselves who will have a sufficient database to assess their effectiveness,” the Chief Information Officer at the Better Regulation Delivery Office (BRDO) Yana Horiunova said.
Watch briefing webcast at https://bit.ly/344Or1B
To learn more about changes in inspection legislation, you can view the presentation in PDF format.
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