Building new regulatory regimes: Enforcing building regulations in Australia and Canada
A more recent version of this paper is published in the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice, 2010, vol. 12, no. 5, pp.509-525
Download (.pdf) Smart Privatization: Lessons from Private Sector Involvement in Australian and Canadian Building Regulatory Enforcement Regimes
Various scholars stress that traditional regulatory regimes will benefit from greater private sector involvement.... more Various scholars stress that traditional regulatory regimes will benefit from greater private sector involvement. There has been little empirical study, however, on the impact of the “amount” of privatization on certain policy goals. This paper aims at filling that knowledge gap. Based on an analysis of private sector involvement in the enforcement of Australian and Canadian building codes, it argues that a certain threshold exists after which more privatization no longer results in effectiveness and efficiency gains. It furthermore discovers that the relationship between the public and private sector within a regime matters in reaching certain policy goals.
Privatisation of building code enforcement: a comparative study of regimes in Australia and Canada
Purpose – The paper aims to document the effects of the privatisation of building code enforcement regimes. It notes... more
Purpose – The paper aims to document the effects of the privatisation of building code enforcement regimes. It notes that privatisation is generally accompanied by trade-offs between competing democratic values such as effectiveness, efficiency, accountability, and equity and explores the extent to which particular trade-offs might be related to aspects of the design of the regimes in which they occur.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses a comparative case study analysis of two Australian and two Canadian privatised building control regimes. This comparison is based on semi-structured interviews with key actors in the building and building control industries.
Findings – Evidence of the expected trade-offs between competing democratic values is found in the privatised regimes within the case study. Some of these might be explained in terms of the extent of private sector involvement (PSI) in a regime, or of the nature of the relationship between the public and the private sectors within it. However, not all trade-offs are necessarily related to these characteristics. Overall, PSI deliver an increase in effectiveness and efficiency but at a particular cost of public accountability. A competitive, rather than a complementary, relationship between the private and public sectors in a privatised regime is also found to be more likely to generate problems related to the equity of the service being provided.
Research limitations/implications – The case studies are explorative in nature and the research does not therefore claim empirical generalization, but instead provides illustrations of the impacts that might result from privatising building code enforcement. The paper is largely based on a series of interviews. The findings should be understood as the aggregated opinions of the interviewees.
Practical implications – Based on the case study analysis, the paper draws important conclusions for policymakers in this area. It suggests that privatisation should be performed with the utmost care and highlights positive features of the regimes studied that might indicate some of the ingredients of a successful privatisation. These include providing private sector inspectors with the opportunity to specialize, confining PSI to assessment tasks, and ensuring that a complementary relationship exists between the private and public sectors within the privatised regime.
Originality/value – The paper makes original contributes to existing literature on the impact of the “policy mix” on regulatory governance, and on the trade-offs which result from the introduction of the private sector into regulatory governance.
Shifting responsibilities in building control in the Netherlands: a historical perspective
This paper is part of my earlier PHD project. See the book: Building regulatory enforcement regimes.
One task, a few approaches, many impacts: Private‐sector involvement in Canadian building code enforcement
In response to issues about municipal-led regulatory enforcement, governments in Canada have been reforming their... more In response to issues about municipal-led regulatory enforcement, governments in Canada have been reforming their regimes of building regulation and control since the 1980s. As a result, private-sector inspectors were introduced as an alternative to local government control on the adherence to building regulations. However, this privatization has resulted in variations among jurisdictions. The main difference is the degree of private-sector involvement. Based on a series of interviews with forty-seven insiders, this article addresses the implications of such differences in privatization on the practice and process of building code enforcement. It draws some general lessons for the redesign of control over building regulations but at the same time warns against copy-pasting best practices.
On Peanuts and Monkeys: Private Sector Involvement in Australian Building Control
In response to issues arising from municipal led regulatory enforcement, governments in Australia have reformed their... more In response to issues arising from municipal led regulatory enforcement, governments in Australia have reformed their regimes of building regulation and control since the 1990s. Private certifiers have been introduced as an addition to local government building control. Based on a series of interviews with 56 insiders this article addresses the implications of privatisation of Australian building control by discussing its intended and unintended impacts. The article concludes by drawing a number of case-specific lessons and more general lessons on privatisation of regulatory enforcement that move well beyond the field of building control.
Towards a better understanding of building regulation
This paper reviews a large body of regulatory literature and applies four major debates to the field of building... more This paper reviews a large body of regulatory literature and applies four major debates to the field of building regulation and control. We find that this field has attracted little attention of regulatory scholars, whilst fields such as the ‘natural’ or ‘occupational’ environment are often addressed in regulatory studies. We furthermore find that studies of building regulation and control often lack theoretical descriptions or applications. We argue that such details are necessary for a better understanding of building regulations and control.
New enforcement strategies for Dutch municipal building control
This paper is part of my earlier PHD project. See the book: Building regulatory enforcement regimes.
Problems in enforcing Dutch building regulations
This paper is part of my earlier PHD project. See the book: Building regulatory enforcement regimes.
Purpose – The paper seeks to define the nature of the policy problems in Dutch building control.
Design/methodology/approach – The authors use Dunn's four-phase methodology for public policy analysis, consisting of problem sensing, problem search, problem definition, and problem specification. Both a literature review and a field study into the operation of local building control authorities were undertaken. The field study incorporates characteristics of a survey, with methodology developed by Fowler.
Findings – Dutch building control legislation has been subject to many changes over the 100 years or so that it has been in force as it has responded to society's changing priorities. Throughout this period building regulation has become more detailed and more uniform across the country. Nevertheless, almost no legal changes have been made to the enforcement system. Responsibility for building control still lies with the municipalities and implementation is still not established by national legislation or policy document. Ongoing attempts to deregulate and standardise the legislative framework should therefore not stop at changing the regulations. Changes in the supervision system might offer an alternative route to improving the quality of the (technical) building control and clarifying the tasks and responsibilities of building control staff.
Research limitations/implications – The analysis focuses on problems in building control and does not consider design and construction problems.
Practical implications – The field study contains important lessons for building control practitioners and policymakers regarding current deficiencies in the implementation of building control legislation.
Originality/value – The paper provides a model for the analysis, and comparative study, of building control systems in other jurisdictions.
International comparative analysis of building regulations: an analytical tool
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce a tool for the international comparative analysis of regulatory... more
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce a tool for the international comparative analysis of regulatory regimes in the field of building regulation.
Design/methodology/approach – On the basis of a heuristic model drawn from regulatory literature, a typology of building regulatory regimes is introduced. Each type is illustrated with a number of real-life examples from North America, Europe, and Australia.
Findings – Governments worldwide have introduced building regulatory regimes with a variety of designs. On an abstract level, these designs are shown to have a comparable pattern. This pattern is utilised to draw up a typology of regime-designs that can be placed on a sliding scale, with a “pure public regime” at the one end and a “pure private regime” at the other. Intermediate regimes display characteristics of both.
Originality/value – The comparative analysis of different regimes assists policy makers by demonstrating which combinations of regulatory characteristics can provide the best results in particular instances. The typology introduced by the paper assists this process by providing a tool for systematic analysis of complex real-life cases.