The residents of a market town in Cambridgeshire, England, have been using flowers to decorate their houses, kerbsides, planters and hanging baskets for eighteen years to enter and celebrate “Britain in Bloom”, an annual competition of local floral displays. The Charteris in Bloom Group – all volunteers – have over the years won gold prizes in both the local and national competitions, bringing pleasure to residents and visitors alike. 

But this year the local government, Cambridgeshire County Council, has forbidden them from putting hanging baskets on the lampposts because “the streetlights are connected to the power grid” and it “needs to ensure everyone’s safety”.  

Notwithstanding that it has no evidence of death by flower basket, electrocution by lamppost or even of falling off a ladder while hanging a basket of trailing begonias, the Council now requires that all volunteers have independent safety training and must take a day-long course which will cost them each £145 ($190). 

This is a classic example of what I call “Wrong-touch regulation” – regulations applied without evidence of actual harm, without relevance to the context and without common sense. The Council had not identified a problem, had not done a risk assessment, had not been proportionate in its actions, had not thought of alternatives and had not considered the unintended consequences of its new ruling. In this case the unintended consequences are that the local volunteers will no longer decorate the town. Although the doughty President of Charteris in Bloom has volunteered to stand in the street supporting a hanging basket of flowers on her outstretched arm. 

Regulation is a blunt instrument. Someone somewhere no doubt said it was dangerous to tamper with streetlights. Someone might be harmed. Indeed, they might, but in the village of Charteris, they haven’t been.  

Governments in general say they are opposed to “red tape”. They come into office promising to abolish rules and regulations, but usually leave having created more and more.  

When I was a boy, many years ago, we were taught practical skills so that we could do things for ourselves safely. One skill I learned was how to wire an electric plug without electrocuting myself. Years later in many jurisdictions, it is illegal to wire your own plug – you must summon and pay for a regulated electrician to do it. In Europe, replaceable plugs are banned. They must be welded to the flex and so are not recyclable, thus adding to the ever-growing mountain of electronic waste. 

We also overregulate people. In a recent piece in Ascend we learned that the National Association of State EMS Officials (NASEMSO) had created 500 pages of guidance for Emergency Medical Services. Just when are paramedics dealing with an emergency going to read those 500 pages of guidance, and aren’t they already trained to do their jobs? It well illustrates Professor Lorraine Daston’s observation, which I wrote about here a while ago, that we have moved from thick rules guiding people to do the right thing, to thin rules instructing them on very detail. What happened to “keep it simple” as a guide for regulators? 

Nursing regulators in Canada used to have a category of “camp nurses” — specialists in dealing with cut knees, bruises, and campfire burns. Was that really a clinical specialty? Surely all nurses can do that? 

In England, some parents are campaigning to have cell phones banned for all children under the age of 13 because of the dangers of social media, but what about the benefits of being able to phone home and ask a parent to collect you and keep you safe? The dangers of social media are real, but it is like saying that no child should have a bicycle because some children have serious accidents. 

There is an old saying, “Hard cases make bad law”. Individual tragedies similarly. 

Hand in hand with over-regulation goes disempowerment and irresponsibility. 

If we spend our time imagining every possible risk of harm, we will finish up regulating everyone that moves and everything that does not. 

A briefing from the Brookings Institute pointed out that occupational regulation has a harmful effect on social mobility, it limits supply and excludes a cohort of people from learning and improving and progressing in their careers. Over regulation has undesirable effects. 

Of course, the world can be a dangerous place, hanging baskets might just fall on our heads. Of course, some occupations are more likely to cause harm than others but let’s try to get the balance right between personal responsibility and restrictions on choice. That’s what effective, right-touch regulators try to do.  

Harry Cayton is a sought-after global authority on regulatory practices who created the Professional Standards Authority (PSA) and pioneered right-touch regulation. He is a regular Ascend Voices contributor.