Impact assessment is an information gathering and analyzing process to enhance the efficiency of regulation. In the Hungarian regulatory impact assessment system, it is necessary to analize the expected effects of the relevant regulations in the relevant period of time depending on the importance of those impacts and to summarize the results in the impact analysis sheet in order to support the evidence based decision making.
The impact assessment, as an important tool of ‘smart regulation’, is necessary to be able to present the relevant effects of decisions for decision-makers. It takes into consideration the available resources in the most monetized and comparative way.
Impact assessment processes play an important role in the Hungarian legislative system, the regulation of certain elements of ex-ante and ex-post impact assessment can be found in the Act on Legislation No. 130. of 2010 and in the KIM Decree 24/2011 (VIII. 9.) on Ex-ante and Ex-post Impact Assessment. As a result of the introduction of the new impact assessment sheet, effects on the whole society or certain stakeholders or target groups had became more identifiable.
The Prime Minister's Office, the other ministries and the background institutions cooperate closely in the field of impact assessment activities.
One of the basic principles of the Hungarian impact assessment system is that ministries are responsible for their own impact assessment projects/actions, conducting impact assessments and filling the impact assessment sheets regarding their specific proposals.
A multi-level impact assessment educational programme supports the impact assessment activities of certain ministries. Nearly a half thousand government officials attended to the basic training on impact assessment, coordinated by the former Ministry of Public Administration and Justice. The educational guide is to be used as a methodology, which can be downloaded from the Hungarian site.
The department responsible for impact assessment within the Prime Minister's Office continuously monitors how the system works and how the impact assessment sheets are utilized. In case of necessity, the Impact Assessment Unit proposes to make changes. The first technical update of the impact assessment sheet had been done based on the experiences and feedbacks. The new impact assessment sheet is available on the following page.
Thanks to the points of contacts on impact assessment in each ministry, the system is to become more transparent; the questions and problems can be handled quickly.
The Government Office has a main task: the monitoring of the proposals submitted to the Government and commenting these in the aspect of policy and impact assessment – ensuring the successful implementation of strategic goals and a system-wide innovation of public administration.
Opinions and suggestions to the Impact Assessment Unit related to the impact assessment system can be sent through the Contact subpage.
