2
Technical appendix
The Victorian Regulatory System (VRS) continues to build on knowledge gained from
previous editions to develop a more comprehensive publication. The approach
adopted and issues relating to interpretations and methodology are explained in this
chapter.
2.1
Scope of report
As discussed in chapter 1, this report is intended to be a guide to the Victorian
Government entities that have substantial regulatory roles relating to businesses.
Using the definition of a business regulator outlined in box 1.1, the VCEC has collated
information on 59 Victorian regulatory units whose activities affect Victorian businesses,
other private sector entities (such as private schools, not-for-profits and hospitals) and
particular occupations that operated in 2011-12.
2.1.1
Regulators
Aside from the Council of Legal Education (which has been included for the first time)
all of the regulators included in this report have provided information in past editions of
the VRS. These regulators have been identified from: reviews of legislation; the VCEC’s
public inquiries and analysis of new regulatory proposals; annual reports of government
departments and agencies; and consultation within government.
In some cases, a single regulator has provided information on multiple regulatory units.
The Department of Health has, like previous years, been treated as a single business
regulator but has reported information separately for each of its 11 regulatory units.
Data has been presented at a disaggregated level in the Excel spreadsheet that
accompanies this report. In addition, information on the Building Commission, Plumbing
Industry Commission and the Architects Registration Board are presented separately, as
those regulators were operating separately during 2011-12. Future editions of the VRS
will report the Victorian Building Authority as a single regulator.
As in previous years, a number of entities are excluded from the report, including courts
and tribunals as well as the following organisations.

Local councils — Victoria’s 79 local councils play an integral role in administering
and enforcing a broad range of State regulations, among other functions. Each
council undertakes essentially the same regulatory task and is structured similarly. As
a result, councils are not included in this report, which was designed in part to
improve the understanding of differences in process and governance across
Victorian Government regulators.

Water industry entities — Victoria has 16 active water corporations (former water
authorities) serving Melbourne and regional Victoria, which perform regulatory
functions prescribed by the Water Industry Act 1994 (Vic) and other Acts. These
functions include granting bore construction licences, as well as the primary roles of
service delivery and management of water infrastructure. There are also 10
catchment management authorities, which are responsible for ensuring the
sustainable use and management of land and water resources. Catchment
management authorities use some regulatory instruments, such as authorising
permits, to achieve these goals. Like local councils, each catchment management
authority undertakes essentially the same regulatory task. Other significant aspects
of water regulation are conducted by agencies covered in the report. The Essential
TECHNICAL APPENDIX
21
Services Commission regulates price and service quality aspects of the water
industry; the EPA Victoria sets and regulates environmental standards and
performance; and the Safe drinking water unit of the Department of Health is
responsible for managing the regulation of drinking water quality.

Organisations external to government with delegated powers — a number of
entities have regulatory powers, assigned either in legislation or through a
delegation from the relevant regulator. These entities are not included in this report
because they are not formally part of the State Government. They include the Law
Institute of Victoria, the RSPCA and the Energy and Water Ombudsman.

Third-party auditors — compliance with some regulations is monitored by
accredited third party auditors, external to the regulator. Inspections of premises to
ensure correct food safety processes and assessments of a new home’s energy
rating are two areas where this occurs.

Commonwealth Government —The VCEC has, in this and previous reports, referred
to information from the Productivity Commission that approximately 60
Commonwealth Government departments and agencies, as well as 40 national
standard-setting bodies and ministerial councils, have the power to prepare or
administer regulations (VCEC 2006) and will have some impact on Victorian
businesses. National regulators were outside the scope of this report.

Interstate regulators — Victorian businesses can be affected by regulations of other
Australian states and territories. This is particularly the case in border regions, where
overlapping jurisdictions can create an extra layer of complexity.
There are other entities which have not been included where regulatory functions are a
small part of their work and which seem to place a limited burden on business — for
example, the regulatory functions of bodies such as the Royal Botanical Gardens
Board. In addition, regulators that focus exclusively on regulating public or government
activities (including contract management) as opposed to business activity — such as
the Victorian Electoral Commission and the Office of the Ombudsman — are not
included.
As discussed in chapter 1, there has been a reduction in the number of regulators
reported in this edition of the VRS. Table 2.1 outlines the changes to regulators reported
in this edition of the VRS, relative to the previous edition.
Changes to regulators from the 2011 edition of
the VRS
Regulator
Reason
Merged with other Department of Environment
Animal Standards Unit and Primary Industries (DEPI) regulators to form the
Animal, Chemical and Plant Standards Branch
Merged with
another
regulator(s)
22
Chemical Standards
Branch
Regulatory functions have been divided
between the newly formed DEPI regulators, the
Animal, Chemical and Plant Standards Branch
and the Plant, Biosecurity and Product Integrity
Branch
Biodiversity and
Ecosystem Services,
Natural Resources,
Parks and Forests
Merged with other DEPI regulators to form Land,
Fire, Environment, Water and Natural Resources
Branch
VICTORIAN REGULATORY SYSTEM
Regulator
Reason
Plant Standards
Branch
Regulatory functions have been divided
between the newly formed DEPI Animal,
Chemical and Plant Standards Branch and the
Plant, Biosecurity and Product Integrity Branch
Liquor Licensing
Merged with the Victorian Commission for
Gambling Regulation to form the Victorian
Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation
Victorian Commission Merged with Liquor Licencing to form the
for Gambling
Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor
Regulation
Regulation
Changed
name
Workforce Victoria
No longer has
a regulatory Sustainability Victoria
function
No longer
exists
Some regulatory functions have been removed
and is now responsible for regulating the
employment of children aged under 15 and
administering workplace legislation in relation to
long service leave. Reported as the Employment
Information and Compliance Unit.
Previously responsible for accrediting energy
assessors, this function has now moved to the
Commonwealth Government Nationwide House
Energy Rating Scheme.
Victorian Skills
Commission
Organisation no longer exists. Regulatory
functions have been transferred to Victorian
Registration and Qualifications Authority
Twelve former statebased health boards
Responsibility for the registration and
accreditation of medical professions has been
transferred to a national regulator, the Australian
Health Practitioners Registration Authority
Land, Fire,
Environment, Water
and Natural Resource
Regulation and
Compliance
Previously part of the Department of
Sustainability and Environment, now operating as
Bureau of Animal
part of the DEPI
Welfare
Fisheries Victoria
Changed
reporting
department
Plant Biosecurity and
Product Integrity
Aboriginal Affairs
Victoria
Previously part of the Department of Planning and
Community Development, now operating as part
of the Department of Premier and Cabinet.
Earth Resources
Regulation Branch
Previously part of the Department of Primary
Industries, now operating as part of the
Department of State Development, Business and
Innovation.
Employment
Information and
Compliance Unit
Previously part of the Department of Treasury
and Finance, now operating as part of the
Department of State Development, Business and
Innovation.
Source: Commission analysis
TECHNICAL APPENDIX
23
2.1.2
Data
The report continues to build on previous editions, developing a more thorough
understanding of Victoria’s regulators and the regulations that they administer. Table
2.2 provides an overview of information reported across editions of the VRS.
Information reported across editions of The
Victorian Regulatory System
Data
Years reported
New Information requested for this edition
Information on Ministerial statements of expectations
2013
Information relating to the provision and utilisation of online access
to registration and licencing processes
2013
Information in previous editions
Review mechanisms for regulatory decisions
2009, 2011
Performance evaluation and audit information
2011
Interstate agencies/regulators with similar responsibilities or
functions
2005, 2006, 2007,
2008, 2009, 2011
Information on mutual recognition of licences
2009, 2011
Information on policy functions
2005, 2006, 2007,
2008, 2009, 2011
Information on agreements with supporting staff
2011
Mandatory insurance requirements
2005, 2006, 2007,
2008, 2009, 2011
Source: Commission analysis
Several fields have been removed from this edition of the VRS compared with previous
editions. This was largely done to streamline the reporting process for regulators (see
Section 2.2) and to reduce the size of the publication. Those fields which were removed
were done so with consideration of the degree to which survey responses had
changed across editions and the relevance of the data to the Government’s reducing
the regulatory burden initiatives. Information on these fields is available in the excel
spreadsheet that accompanies previous editions.
2.2
Method
The VCEC collected the information contained in this report between April 2013 and
July 2013. The process involved four steps.
(1) Identifying the information required, with a focus on information that was likely to
be publicly available from a range of sources; for example, annual reports and
websites of regulators and the State Government directory.
(2) Collating the information for each regulator. The VCEC was mindful of the need to
minimise its burden on the participating regulators, particularly the smaller entities,
and completed (as far as possible) a draft entry for each regulator from publicly
available information. Each regulator was then asked to fill in information that had
not been found from public sources and to confirm the accuracy of data collated
by the VCEC.
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VICTORIAN REGULATORY SYSTEM
(3) Editing and standardising individual entries. Each entry was returned to the relevant
regulator to allow them to correct errors and provide a final sign-off.
(4) Producing an overview and the release of this report.
All of the 59 regulators responded at either stage (2) or (3).
Legislative data were chiefly obtained from the Victorian Legislative and Parliamentary
Documents website (www.legislation.vic.gov.au). Data relating to permits, licences,
etc. came from previous editions of the VRS, and directly from regulators.
2.3
Other issues
Glossary of terms — a number of terms have been interpreted in a common way by the
VCEC and appear in the attached glossary of definitions in chapter 3.
Interpreting missing data — a consistent notation has been applied to explain missing
data: not applicable; not available; not recorded; or not supplied. These interpretations
are provided in the glossary.
Expenditure totals — the expenditure totals should include, where possible, estimates of
overhead costs and direct staff costs. Totals refer to the organisation as a whole and
are not limited to the area responsible for regulatory functions (unless otherwise stated).
Acts and Regulations — included in this report are all Acts and Regulations
administered by each regulatory body as at 30 June 2013. This includes all Acts
‘assented to’ and all Regulations ‘made’ as at 1 January 2013. Some Acts and
Regulations are included that do not have a regulatory function and/or only affect
private individuals.
Page numbers of Acts and sets of Regulations — data were collected from the
Victorian
Legislative
and
Parliamentary
Documents
website
(www.legislation.vic.gov.au) to determine the aggregate number of, and net change
in, pages of all Acts and sets of Regulations included in each regulator’s entry. The
version of each Act and set of Regulations current at 1 January 2011 and 30 June 2013
were viewed and the page number of the last page of the PDF version of each
document recorded.
Each Act and set of Regulations was counted once, even when an Act or set of
Regulations was included in more than one regulator’s entry (for example, the Transport
Integration Act 2010 (Vic), which is administered by VicRoads, Victorian Taxi Directorate
and Transport Safety Victoria). For each set of Regulations the sunsetting date was
recorded from the version of the document current at 30 June 2013.
Details are available in the Excel spreadsheet that accompanies this report. This
spreadsheet contains Acts and Regulations that were either active or repealed during
the time that the survey was run.
Variation between data in report entries and spreadsheet — this report includes a
detailed entry on the functions and structure of each regulatory body. The data from
each entry were collated into a spreadsheet that is available on the VCEC’s website. In
some cases the VCEC aggregated the information provided in the regulator entry and
included a comment in the spreadsheet denoting where this happened. In other cases,
the terminology in the spreadsheet has been altered from the regulators’ entries, for
instance, to allow aggregation and comparison. For example, where an entry states
that permit requirements are set by a Board or Authority, the spreadsheet records the
common term ‘Regulator’, which is consistent across entries. Where the spreadsheet
TECHNICAL APPENDIX
25
differs from a regulator’s entry, the relevant cell contains a comment stating the original
response.
Timeliness information reported by regulators included, for example, ‘28 days’; ‘one
month’; ‘3-4 weeks’. To enable the VCEC to compare data, the spreadsheet recorded
the maximum number of days (for example, in the case of ‘3-4 weeks’, the spreadsheet
records 28 days). Thirty days was used as a proxy for one month. For simplicity, business
days versus non-working days were not differentiated in the spreadsheet, given that
most regulators did not specify whether the time reported excluded non-working days.
Where the spreadsheet differs from a regulator’s entry, the relevant cell contains a
comment stating the original response.
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VICTORIAN REGULATORY SYSTEM