Guide to Regulations Regelhjelp.no is a service to enterprises in need of a guide to the vast body of regulations. The website makes it easier for users to find out about requirements related to health, safety and the environment that government authorities have established for their industry. Because regulations are administered by many different agencies, it used to be a time-consuming task to gather complete information about them. Now the requirements set by many different agencies are compiled according to industry on Regelhjelp.no. Quality-assured, Updated and Prioritised Regelhjelp.no provides updated, quality-assured regulatory information. The authorities have identified and prioritised the most important requirements and made them available in a searchable format. Industry-based The information on Regelhjelp.no is organized according to industry. It uses standard industry categories based on eu industry codes (NACE). Information can also be accessed by using the enterprise’s organisation number. Three levels of Information The most important requirements for each industry are classified by subject and presented in three tiers or levels: a brief overview of the requirements, in-depth information on the requirements, and authorised texts of the regulations. For each requirement, contact information is provided for the relevant agency. Search with your Enterprise Number On the frontpage of Regelhjelp.no you can type in your enterprise number and get the overview of the most important requirements from the today 7 different authorities behind the website. This is possible since Regelhjelp.no is linked to the Brønnøysund Register Centre, which contains the Enterprise Numbers of Norwegian enterprises. In 2008 searching by Enterprise Name will also be possible.

Policy Context

User-friendliness in a Simpler Norway One of the goals of the Government’s “Action Plan for a Simpler Norway (2005-2009)” is to make regulatory information user-friendly for the business and industrial sector. By using Regelhjelp.no, enterprises can easily learn about the requirements that apply to them without needing in-depth knowledge of the structure of government administration. As a part of the “Action Plan for a Simpler Norway”, Regelhjelp.no is funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Labour and Social Inclusion.

Description of target users and groups

Regelhjelp.no targets its service primarily toward general managers and those responsible for matters related to health, safety and the environment in small and medium-sized companies, but safety officers, the general public and large scale enterprises will also benefit from the service.

Description of the way to implement the initiative

The website has a central project manager and a central web editor. Each of the participating agencies has an agency editor. None of the involved have Regelhjelp.no as their only occupation, everyone fulfills another role in their agency. The agency editors meet regularly to discuss and develop the content and the organisation of the content. The steering group consists of directors of each agency and draw the lines and take principle decisions for the project. Multi-channel issues: Contact for feedback and questions In addition to the website itself we offer a contact service where people can send in questions. These questions will be answered within 72 hours. Industry-specific News On Regelhjelp.no users can register to receive newsletters and information about regulatory changes related to each industry. This way every user will only get news related to his or her industry and avoid "spam". Most of our service is online-based communication. However, our users are welcome to call us and we will guide them through the legislation. The participating agencies also go out to organisations and industries to give seminars and supervision.

Main results, benefits and impacts

Apart from being awarded in Norway our strongest evidence of impact and results come from our contact with the users, with the trade unions and with the bodies of interest of the industries. We have e-mails from our users with statements like "We saved NOK 40 000 (5 000 Euros) when we started our farm tourism concept due to Regelhjelp.no - after finding the true regulations for our coming business" and strong support from the organisations on both the employers' and employees' side. The number of users is growing every month, by today we have in average 500 users every day. The users are a mix of civil servants and representatives of industry, showing that we reach both these target groups. From 2008 Regelhjelp.no will be integrated into the every-day life of the five agencies with no external funding. But the project has a high profile and there is demand on the Ministry level to keep Regelhjelp.no good and running. The project has strong and broad political support and has survived two Governments with different colours. Innovation: The magic of Regelhjelp.no is that when legislation is valid for different industries the agency with this legislation within its jurisdiction only has to update changes in the legislation once - and it will be visible for all the relevant industries. Specific legislation for a given industry can easily be explained as additional information to the given demand. It takes time to learn the solution fully but getting started is not only easy but also motivating for the participating agencies. In the beginning it was a true challenge to make the participating civil servants put the needs of the users in front of their own needs. Today we see a totally different approach to this.

Return on investment

Return on investment: Not applicable / Not available

Track record of sharing

We are now planning the expand of Regelhjelp.no to include more Governmental agencies from 2008. This is after wishes both from our users, from the trade unions and from the agencies themselves. As a merge of different help-lines, web-sites and services to industry is identified as a need there is a strong demand from the trade unions and the industry that Regelhjelp.no should be seen as the best practice on user-friendliness. Through the steering group of Regelhjelp.no focus has been put on simplification of legislation to make it understandable for the users. For instance one of the participating agencies will now merge their legislation into 3 directives where there are today a wide range of more specific legislation.

Lessons learnt

Co-operation between Governmental agencies is challenging but can help the users a lot. Frequent user-tests are helpful to ensure the quality of your product. The users are obviously and unfortunately not used to being taken seriously the way we do. Scope: National