Time to “scale back” the Dept for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform – TPA

Ben Farrugia of The Wilted Rose’s favourite thinktank, the Taxpayers’ Alliance, which as I argued 18 months ago has won the argument on taxation (although the Government could do with listening to the new low-tax consensus), has compiled an excellent report on BERR – the Department for Business, Enterprise, and Regulatory Reform.

Anyone who knows anything about BERR will acknowledge that it has done little to help either Business or Enterprise, nor has it done much in the way of regulatory reform. 

The report, which covers an area of personal and professional interest to me, highlights a number of key points (pp 3-4):  

• “The Government has failed to create a better environment for business” e.g. “only 0.3 per cent rise in the number of VAT registered businesses between 1997 and 2006″;
• “The burden of regulation and taxation has increased”;
• “Productivity trends have not improved significantly”.

This damning indictment concludes with the following recommendations (p4), which I for one heartily endorse:

Scaling back the department could save the taxpayer almost £1 billion, out of the BERR’s £1.5 billion potential operating cost for 2008-09. Scrapping the RDAs – as recommended in an earlier TaxPayers’ Alliance report, The Case for Abolishing Regional Development Agencies – would add another £2 billion in savings; leaving a total saving of almost £3 billion.