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Ebook: Competitive enforcement
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Globally, the private sector is becoming increasingly involved in regulation and regulatory enforcement – often mutually competing or, as a sector, competing with traditional government departments. Competitive Enforcement provides insight into this trend in a specific policy area: the built environment. Building on from general notions in regulatory literature, a methodical approach is introduced for comparative analysis of such privatization. This book gives an in-depth analysis of building regulatory enforcement regimes in Australia. Private sector involvement made its entry here in the early 1990s as a competitive alternative to existing public sector involvement. Yet, each Australian state and territory introduced a slightly different regime. The differences amongst the regimes provide a unique opportunity to gain insight into how combinations of policy instruments produce diverse policy outcomes. This book will assist all those interested in (building) regulation and regulatory enforcement in further exploration of the study of regulation, grasping opportunities presented by the construction, maintenance and the use of buildings.
The private sector and other non-governmental parties are becoming increasingly involved in regulation and regulatory enforcement worldwide – often mutually competing or, as a sector, competing with the public sector. This book provides insight into non-governmental involvement in the regulation and regulatory enforcement of what appears to be a neglected subject in the study of regulation, the built environment.
In this book I introduce a methodical approach for comparative analysis of different policy instruments and different organisational arrangements of responsibilities for building regulation and enforcement; possibly in other fields of policy as well. I furthermore show that different forms of competition have specific repercussions on issues such as effectiveness, efficiency, equity and accountability.
I hope this book will demonstrate the value of building control to scholars studying regulation, and the value of regulation studies to scholars studying the built environment. I hope this book will assist policy-makers to obtain a better understanding of the possible implications of future policy that must be taken to rise to the challenge our built environment offers – for example, reducing the use of fossil fuels and minerals; the use of generic resources; waste generation; and air, water and land pollution. Furthermore, I hope this book will assist all those interested in (building) regulation and regulatory enforcement in further exploration of the study of regulation, grasping opportunities presented by the construction, maintenance and the use of buildings.
The research that was the foundation for this book has been conducted as a part of the OTB Research Institute for Housing, Urban and Mobility Studies' (OTB) research into the field of building regulatory regimes. OTB, an institute within Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands, has explored and researched the field of building regulatory regimes for many years. The building regulatory studies at this institute focus on the content and formulation of requirements, as well as on the methods and procedures that have been developed to ensure that demands are actually met in practice. Through international comparative projects, the effectiveness, efficiency and transparency of various building regulatory systems have been analysed in previous OTB projects.
In carrying out this study and writing this book, I have been supported by many individuals and institutions. My debt to all of them is enormous, as is my gratitude. OTB Research Institute for Housing, Urban and Mobility Studies, together with the Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment; Bouwend Nederland, a Dutch association of parties in the development industry, Stichting Bouw Research, a knowledge centre for domestic, commercial and industrial building; and Vereniging Eigen Huis, a Dutch consumers organisation for (future) homeowners, supplied a generous budget which made it possible for me to visit Australia and carry out an extensive series of interviews with key individuals in the development industry and the building regulatory enforcement industry.
I wish to thank all these people for agreeing to interviews and providing me with invaluable information and their personal experiences with the various Australian building regulatory regimes. To protect your anonymity I cannot, unfortunately, personally thank you all here. Still, I wish to say that I was truly overwhelmed by your help and support. Special thanks go to Greg du Chateau, associate at Phillip Chun & Associates Pty ltd and former President of the Australian Institute of Building Surveyors (AIBS). Without his help and ongoing support in finding contacts and information the empirical research I present in this study would have been impossible. Thanks to Lara for taking such good care of me when you and Greg had me staying at your house. I furthermore wish to thank all the organisations that provided me with a desk to work from: Planning SA in Adelaide; Phillip Chun & Associates Pty Ltd in Melbourne; and Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane.
Regarding the theoretical part of this book, I have received invaluable advice from a variety of people. Special thanks go to Johan den Hertog, lecturer in Competition Law and Economics, and Social Competition and Regulation Coordinator of the Economics and Law Master's programme at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. Particular thanks go to Neil Gunningham, Professor at the Australian National University, Canberra, Australia observations have been of great value to me; and to Peter May, Professor at the University of Washington, Seattle, US.
Last, but not least, I wish to thank the team supervising my work at OTB Research Institute: Professor Jitske de Jong, Professor André Thomsen, Professor Henk Visscher and Frits Meijer for their ongoing advice, criticism and moral support.
Jeroen van der Heijden
Delft, the Netherlands
2008
