Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Act 2008

The Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Act 2008 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which is designed to provide for more consistent enforcement of regulations across local authority boundaries, better co-ordination between local authorities and central government, and more effective enforcement of regulations. It also requires regulators to conform to certain principles. The Act was passed in response to the Hampton report, commissioned in the 2004 budget.

Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Act 2008^[1]

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Long title	An Act to make provision for the establishment of the Local Better Regulation Office; for the co-ordination of regulatory enforcement by local authorities; for the creation of civil sanctions in relation to regulatory offences; for the reduction and removal of regulatory burdens; and for connected purposes.
Citation	2008 c. 13
Introduced by	Lord Bach on behalf of Lord Jones
Territorial extent	England and Wales; Scotland; Northern Ireland
Dates
Royal assent	21 July 2008
Commencement	1 October 2008
Status: Current legislation
History of passage through Parliament
Text of statute as originally enacted
Revised text of statute as amended

The Act has four parts:

• Part 1 re-establishes Local Better Regulation Office, already established in May 2007 as a government-owned company, as a statutory corporation with statutory powers.
• Part 2 established a Primary Authority scheme, whereby businesses which operate in more than one local authority area can choose to nominate one authority as the primary one for regulatory purposes.
• Part 3 introduces four new civil penalties that regulatory authorities will be able to impose on businesses.
• Part 4 imposes a duty on regulators to keep their regulatory activity under review and remove unnecessary burdens, and to keep their regulatory activities to a necessary minimum.