To think impact assessments should be done BEFORE a decision is made?

[Binglebong]

Filling in the GRA consultation and came across this.

"we will produce a full substantive impact assessment once we know what action we will take"

Surely if you are making a change you assess what it will affect and how before you make the decision? Am I being thick?

Just bumping because I think people will have missed this and it's appalingness.

It's because it's a done deal. They'll let us know what they've decided for us in due course.

No we know how farm animals feel.

This is pretty standard for all kinds of legislation.

The consultation is part of a lengthy scrutiny process.

Basically - draft bill is written, it goes out to consultation.

Proposed changes are suggested based on the consultation. This is then discussed through a series of scrutiny committees. These committees look at the impact of any bill, what the bill attempts to achieve and any unintended consequences. Sometimes scrubity committees are just one party (the government, especially when they are in majority) or cross-party (this happens a lot with private member's bills).

It's after a full scrutiny process that a 'final' version of a bill will be presented to parliament to vote on. This can be ammended - if enough votes are cast - in the Commons. The Lords can also suggest amendments.

It sounds strange - but this is the usual order of things when drafting proposed legislation. Impact assessments are only done once there is a clearer idea of what the legislation may look like. This is usually sometime after consultation.

Thank you. That's actually reassuring. I think they wrote it badly - if they had said "as part of" instead of after it would have come across much better.