Trust experts - 'not box ticking'

Mr Letwin said the death of Baby P was an example of regulations not working

The government needs to put more trust in the judgement of experts, instead of relying on "too much process-following and box-ticking", a senior Tory says.

Policy co-ordinator Oliver Letwin said it was "well-nigh impossible" to create rules to deal with all eventualities.

Modern officials should be more like Victorian school inspectors, who were not overburdened with paperwork but "inspected the children", he added.

Bad regulation was self-defeating as it hindered professional judgement.

'Box-ticking'

In a speech to the Policy Exchange think-tank, he said there were two sorts of responsibility - Type A and Type B.

Type A was "rule-based" and involved too much "process-following and box-ticking", in which "responsibility exercised by the professionals in the field diminishes".

This had happened in the case of Baby P, who died in August 2007 at the hands of his mother, her boyfriend and their lodger, despite being on the child protection register and receiving 60 contacts with the authorities over eight months.

The present government has created the miracle of too much regulation becoming, at one and the same time, too little regulation Oliver Letwin, Conservatives

Children's services in Haringey, north London, where the child had lived, had displayed Type A responsibility, Mr Letwin said.

He added: "They received, just after the horrific death of Baby P, a commendable Ofsted report.

"Processes were in order. Everything requiring to be done under regulation of Type A had been done.

"The baby was dead - ah yes, a tragic error. But the regulation had been observed."

The activities people most want to regulate, such as looking after at-risk children, flying planes and banking, were often "not simple at all", making it near-impossible to create rules to guarantee the correct results, Mr Letwin said.

'Governor's eyebrow'

There had to be more Type B - judgement-based - regulation, he added.

Victorian school inspectors had such freedom, Mr Letwin said, adding: "They did not inspect the processes employed by the teachers.

"Instead, they inspected the children, hearing them say their lessons. If the inspector thought the children knew what they ought to know, given their abilities and ages, then all was well. If not, not."

Mr Letwin said that, prior to Labour gaining power in 1997, the main instrument for supervising banks had been the governor of the Bank of England's eyebrow.

He added: "If, in his judgement (based on the judgement of his colleagues who were respected banking professionals), a given commercial bank was taking excessive risk, the governor's eyebrow would be raised - and the risky practice would be discontinued.

"No rules. No processes. Just a professional judgement of the risk."

Mr Letwin also said that "the howls of protest now emanating from all those doctors and nurses, teachers and police officers, business people, charity trustees and farmers, are essentially howls of protest about the distorting effects of excessive Type A regulation".

He added: "People in important positions do what the system gives them incentives to do.

"If the system of regulation gives them incentives to adhere to processes, they will adhere to processes - even if that means suspending their professional judgment.

"And this is how the present government has created the miracle of too much regulation becoming, at one and the same time, too little regulation."