Reducing Red Tape Creating More Red Tape?

Understaffing and underfunding may be causing the projects at the British Columbia Ministry of Small Business and Red Tape Reduction to ironically be caught up in red tape.

The transition binder prepared for Minister Coralee Oakes when she took the file in August of 2015, suggests that two pilot projects aimed at reducing burdensome forms were set aside due to “lack of staff resources,” according to one of the documents in the binder.

The binder was released through a freedom of information request. The document in question is a PowerPoint slide. The content of the slide has been redacted, but a note clearly suggests that the projects did not go forward.

The fact that the Ministry was able to put time into a project in the first place came as a surprise to NDP critic for Small Business, Jane Shin. “The ministry got the promotion to full ministry status, when in fact it has the operating budget” of a small ministry.

The note under the slide also indicates that the projects produced a best practices guide for forms, but that the guide “remains a tool” rather than a mandated requirement. In response to an email regarding the document, the ministry indicated that the guide was not mandated because forms vary across departments, and having a single format for forms would not make sense.

While the lack of resources is often the reasoning given for sidelining projects, University of British Columbia professor and expert in bureaucracy and red tape, Martin Schulz argues that it is about resource allocation. In an email he said the limited resource reasoning is “often a convenient excuse for the lack of interest or attention.”

Schulz speculates that there might be resistance to altering forms because even a slight change could cause unforeseen consequences, such as abuse. “Small changes of rules can cause dramatic changes to the system,” he wrote in his email.

However Shin still thinks the ministry’s lack of resources had a hand in the projects being benched. She says that the understaffing and underfunding is largely due to the uniqueness of the ministry itself. “In other jurisdictions small business is not really a ministry of its own,” she says “it’s usually part of a bigger file.”

Despite its small size, the BC government pushes Small Business and Red Tape Reduction as one of its prime ministries. The government host several events highlighting the work of the ministry, including Red Tape Reduction Day, which was first observed March 2 of this year.

Furthermore the documents in the binder indicate that introducing more straightforward forms was part of the Reducing Red Tape for Real People Initiative, launched by the BC government in the February 2015 throne speech. Such an emphasis on forms as part of this initiative suggests that there is interest in the project, despite Shulz suggestions.

While it may appear that the form project, aimed at reducing red tape was caught up in red tape itself, the initiative is not set to be complete until June of this year. According to the documents the ministry will report to cabinet on this summer, still leaving time for the projects to be brought full swing.