Finland

Finland’s traditional Nordic model is under pressure: A rapidly ageing society, the global economic crisis and growing societal disillusionment require the public administration to be strategically agile in order to maintain fiscal sustainability and to respond to a complex and rapidly changing environment.  The government’s capacity to act in these difficult times will depend on the public administration’s ability to work together – across all of the public administration at the state and local level, and with society as a whole –  in order to sustain success and maintain its global position in the future.    This report is the second in a series of OECD country reviews that look at governance and public management issues from a comprehensive perspective.  These reviews help countries to identify how reforms can better reinforce each other in support of overall government objectives.  They also examine reform strategies that have worked in other countries and provide advice as to which reforms can be appropriately adapted to a given country.

This report maps and analyses the core issues which together make up effective regulatory management for Finland, laying down a framework of what should be driving regulatory policy and reform in the future. Issues examined include: strategy and policies for improving regulatory management; institutional capacities for effective regulation and the broader policy making context; transparency and processes for effective public consultation and communication; processes for the development of new regulations, including impact assessment and for the management of the regulatory stock, including administrative burdens; compliance rates, enforcement policy and appeal processes; and the multilevel dimension: interface between different levels of government and interface between national processes and those of the EU. This book is part of a project examining better regulation, being carried out in partnership with the European Commission.