Reports

Regulators act as 'market referees', balancing often competing interests of stakeholders, including governments, current and future actors in the markets, and consumers. At the same time, markets are changing at an unprecedented pace due to new technologies, the international drive toward carbon-neutral economies, shifts in consumer needs and preferences, and, more recently, the profound changes brought by the COVID-19 pandemic. Assessing the performance of economic regulators must therefore be a continuous effort. This progress review evaluates the changes put in place by Peru’s telecommunications regulator, OSIPTEL, since the previous OECD performance assessment review in 2018, in the interest of increasing the effectiveness of its regulatory activities and improving final outcomes for consumers and the economy.

The OECD Public Governance Review of the Czech Republic identifies priority governance areas for reform in the Czech Republic and offers recommendations to strengthen the effectiveness, agility and responsiveness of the country’s public sector. The review first provides a snapshot on the effectiveness of the public administration and its capacity to address contemporary governance challenges, such as digitalisation and climate change. It then analyses a number of critical and priority public governance areas including citizen engagement, centre-of-government-led co-ordination and strategic planning, evidence-informed policy making in the Czech public administration, public administration at the local and regional level, human resources management in the public administration, and digital government. It also includes a case study on governance arrangements and regulations during the COVID-19 pandemic. The review provides recommendations for the Czech public administration to help it implement its Public Administration Reform Strategy: Client-oriented Public Administration 2030 (PAR), achieve the objectives of the PAR, and, ultimately, realise its longer-term sustainable development vision and commitments.

Open banking allows users to access financial information and services through consent-based data portability. This paper brings together the views of private and public experts from a wide variety of countries to explore opportunities and challenges of open banking for financial regulation, privacy protection, and competition. It discusses the different approaches taken by jurisdictions across the globe, and the importance of regulation and standards. While open banking empowers users in sharing and re-using their data across digital services, online platforms, sectors and borders, uncertainty in the interactions with data protection and privacy regimes remains challenging. This paper informs OECD work to consider how cross-sectoral cooperation between financial, competition and data protection authorities could help further open banking.

Government information websites are an important tool for governments seeking to improve communications, ease administrative burdens and provide greater access to public services for citizens and businesses. Effective information websites, centred on users’ needs, can ensure a trustworthy information exchange between citizens and the public administration. This report looks at how developing a fit-for-purpose search function, using predictive text, machine learning techniques, and other functionalities, can contribute to effective information websites. It presents recommendations as well as guidelines for ensuring high-quality standards across government information websites, including upgrading them into transactional portals, where citizens may easily access public services and communicate with government agencies about their needs.

Like many other OECD countries, Greece has embarked on an ambitious digital transformation of its public sector to make it more effective, sustainable, proactive and people-centred. However, digital transformation projects present challenges in terms of governance, procurement, implementation and institutional capacities. This review explores how Greece could overcome these challenges to ensure that digital government investments address critical bottlenecks such as the procurement process and result in policy coherence, achieve value for money, and deliver intended outcomes. It also highlights the crucial role of whole-of-government co-ordination.

This report showcases international regulatory co-operation (IRC) in the areas of competition law and chemical safety. These two studies – covering very different subjects – are rare examples of areas where complex legal and institutional frameworks have been created at the domestic and/or international level to ensure effective IRC. The competition case study focuses on international co-operation for law enforcement, surveying the range of tools and methods countries can use to address international antitrust concerns, as well as the challenges involved. The chemical safety case study reviews the OECD Environment, Health and Safety Programme and provides concrete evidence of the monetary and health benefits of its 'mutual acceptance of data' system related to chemical safety. These case studies are evidence of both the importance and the complexity of frameworks that enable IRC to help solve common problems across jurisdictions.

There is mounting concern that dark commercial patterns may cause substantial consumer detriment. These practices are commonly found in online user interfaces and steer, deceive, coerce, or manipulate consumers into making choices that often are not in their best interests. This report proposes a working definition of dark commercial patterns, sets out evidence of their prevalence, effectiveness and harms, and identifies possible policy and enforcement responses to assist consumer policy makers and authorities in addressing them. It also documents possible approaches that consumers and businesses may take to mitigate dark commercial patterns.

The communication sector is undergoing high-paced developments driven by the digital transformation of our economies and societies. Technological convergence has led to an evolving competitive landscape and new challenges arise around privacy and security concerns. Communication regulators are increasingly acknowledging the positive and negative effects of communication infrastructures and services on the environment. Moreover, there is a growing need to ensure the resilience of networks, stemming partially from the effects of climate change. In consequence, the key question for OECD policymakers is no longer whether regulatory structures need to change, but rather how. This report explores the critical role communication regulators play in an increasingly connected society. It identifies the challenges stemming from the digital transformation of our societies, the main policy objectives pursued by communication regulators, measures to address current and future challenges, as well as the importance of strengthening the capabilities of communication regulators of the future.

The price regulation conducted by economic regulators is a high-stakes process, with significant and lasting impacts on current and future service quality and the overall performance of the regulated sector. This report tracks the efforts of the economic regulator of the Scottish water sector to make the results of its price-setting process work better for the customers of today and tomorrow, addressing issues such as customer engagement, sustainable asset management and climate change. Based on the results of a multi-year peer review, it analyses the process and outputs of the price setting process. It also sets out recommendations to help parties strengthen the resilience and stability of the regulatory framework while not losing sight of strategic vision and objectives.