Regulatory impact assessment framework

• Lithuania stands out from other EU countries for its large and growing number of registered legislative initiatives. Between 2020 and 2023, 2,469 legal acts have been adopted, of which 7% are new laws.
• None of the priority legislative initiatives has been assessed in all 4 mandatory aspects and no cost-benefit analysis has been carried out in any case.
• The quality monitoring of ex ante assessments should be strengthened to ascertain whether the planned legislative initiative is justified.

The regulatory impact in Lithuania is insufficiently assessed both before the adoption of laws (ex ante assessment) or amendments to laws, and after their adoption (ex post evaluation), as shown by the results of the National Audit Office's audit "Regulatory Impact Assessment Framework".

"Regulatory impact assessments would be more effective if all priority legislative initiatives were subject to more detailed impact assessments of the intended regulation. Our audit found that only 26% of the priority legislative initiatives had the more detailed ex-ante assessment that is mandatory. This leaves unassessed a part of the legal regulation that could have a significant impact on society", says Mindaugas Macijauskas, Auditor General.

The impact of priority legislative initiatives should be assessed in terms of their impact on specific areas, public finances, administrative burdens and the economy. However, none of the priority legislative initiatives has been assessed in all the required respects. New legislative initiatives have often left administrative burdens unassessed and in no case has a cost-benefit analysis been carried out.

It is important that the legislative process is open and transparent, involving all stakeholders. The audit shows that 22% of the priority legislative initiatives did not benefit from public consultation, thus denying stakeholders the opportunity to participate in the process. This fails to take advantage of the opportunity to fully assess possible solutions to public policy problems to find the best possible solutions to meet public needs.

Legislative processes do not include procedures for monitoring the quality of ex ante impact assessments. Although quality monitoring is required for all priority legislative initiatives, 41% of these initiatives were not subject to quality monitoring. This does not ensure that decision-making is using substantiated information.

To ensure synergies between the impact assessments of intended (ex ante) and existing (ex post) legislation throughout the legislative cycle, it is important that the need for ex post evaluation of priority legislative initiatives is reasonably assessed. This would help to assess whether the objectives pursued by the legislation have been achieved and what have been the consequences of the legislation.

The implementation of the recommendations by the Office of the Government will lead to the planning and implementation of more informed and comprehensive regulatory impact assessments of the intended regulatory impacts of all priority legislative initiatives, which will make the resulting legislation more responsive to the identified public policy challenges. The quality monitoring of regulatory impact assessments will ensure that the impact assessments are carried out in all the necessary respects. The expertise needed to carry out impact assessments will be built up in the ministries, contributing to the development of better quality legislation.