Does regulation really matter?
Regulation: a word that sends shivers down the spines of many public servants across the globe. But are we looking at it wrong? Can regulation be something that we embrace as a route to innovation in public service?
In this episode, we hear about practical examples of regulation being done differently to achieve real change.
Featured in this episode:
- Adrian Brown (host), Centre for Public Impact
- Carina Gormley (host), Centre for Public Impact
- Connie Binkowitz, Director for Development of Public Policy, Center for Transforming Communities in Memphis, Tennessee
- Thomas Johnson, Greater Manchester Combined Authority, Head of Reform Strategy and Policy
Transcript
SFX News reporter: How many times a day does the government step into your life? Few of us stop to count, but our homes and lives are affected by thousands of federal, state and local regulations.
[00:00:13] Adrian Brown: Hello and welcome to Reimagining Government. My name is Adrian Brown from the Centre for Public Impact.
Regulation: a word that sends shivers down the spines of many public servants across the globe. But are we looking at it wrong? Can regulation be something that we embrace as a route to innovation in public service?
Now, today I’m about to talk all things regulation with Senior Associate at CPI’s Climate Change Initiative, Carina Gomley. Welcome to the podcast, Carina. Great to have you here.
[00:00:45] Carina Gormley: Thank you so much, Adrian. I’m excited to be here with you.
[00:00:50] Adrian Brown: Now, first of all, can you tell us how regulation functions in governance.
[00:00:56] Carina Gormley: Regulation is basically a set of rules, right? It’s kind of the point [00:01:00] of governance. We should all be able to be agents within society doing the things that we wanna accomplish, but ultimately, there are these guardrails that we wanna set forth, and that’s often the role that regulations play, where governments are saying, within what we’re all agreeing to, these are the things that we’re all going to abide by right?
And in many ways, regulations play this really important role, right, of ensuring that the public can have access to safe resources, right? That water is clean, that the environment is safe, that there’s a certain general rule around what is fair or not fair, and regulation can play this role in ensuring that all of those things happen in a way that aligns with what we believe is just general access to human rights for all people.
It’s a very labour intensive process, but also really important to ensure that we all have access to the types of healthy, [00:02:00] safe, fair lives that we all hope to have.
[00:02:03] Adrian Brown: Well, Carina, that was a fantastic case for regulation, but, but also we know that it tends to not be met with a great deal of enthusiasm. So why is that?
Why, why does regulation have such a, a sort of poor public image in that sense?
[00:02:18] Carina Gormley: Regulation is something that’s not always met with lots of enthusiasm, in part because once again, governments are trying to define how people should act or what people should be able to do or not do, right? Broadly speaking, and that’s a big role is to define what that is.
Some people don’t think that regulations are the best way of managing different issues, right? They may say, oh, this is something that will be managed on its own with the general economy. The economy will tell us that this is the right course of action and that’s gonna be all that we need. We don’t need government intervention in this instance.
So I think there are lots of, just from a high level values [00:03:00] perspective, challenges with how folks relate to government in the first place. And then additionally, when it comes to regulations and practice, once again, governments are capacity-constrained and they’re responsible for ensuring that all of these regulations actually get put into place in a way that makes sense for people’s experience on the ground.
Oftentimes we’ll see that even within the city government responsible for regulating, you know, making sure that sidewalks are clear, that might be a fraction of one single person’s job. So that’s a huge lift and can often mean that even when a regulation exists in the law, people aren’t actually seeing that that is being abided by on the ground because there simply isn’t capacity to ensure that that’s there.
So I think those are two really easy ways that we see that regulation is something that people can often take issue with.
[00:03:57] Adrian Brown: That’s really clear Carina, and I’m [00:04:00] thinking ’cause you work as part of the Climate Change Initiative at CPI.
So how does some of this show up in that world? In the world that you’re working in at the moment?
[00:04:08] Carina Gormley: Now, this is where I get really excited because when it comes to the climate crisis, governments have this incredibly potent position where they can outlaw bad actors in the climate space. They can say, you can’t do X, Y, Z thing, right?
Because that’s going to be detrimental to the health of our communities, to our capacity to ensure that emissions don’t meet a point where we end up hitting high average temperatures, right? Two degrees celsius, increase over pre-industrial temperatures. That has major ramifications globally, right? And governments have the tools through regulation to ensure that we all abide by a set of rules that allow us to remain within what’s considered healthy planetary bounds. Nobody else has that [00:05:00] power over everybody in society on an issue that is fundamentally a collective action challenge.
Regulation and government have this capacity to bridge the gap in a way that’s also so fast, right? As long as we can get everybody on board to a new set of standards around what it means to live, what it means to produce the things that we use in day-to-day life, it’s an incredibly potent tool. Now, granted, they’re not gonna be the leading solution, right? Oftentimes when these regulations are getting built out, there are many different interest groups.
And that means that there are lots of compromises that happen at the table before a regulation gets passed, right? Because you wanna make sure that it’s something that truly can work for everybody. So as a result, it’s not gonna be likely the most ambitious requirement to make of everybody in society, of all businesses, of all communities.
But if everybody has to abide by those [00:06:00] standards, that is setting a new precedent. So it’s a big game of signaling that’s also happening where regulators are responding to what they’re seeing happen in the private sector and in communities saying, are people ready for this to become something that we all abide by to a certain standard and private sector and communities are looking to government to say, is my government taking this seriously enough?
Such that they’re going to put down a rule so that we all have to abide by a certain standard. But when it comes to the things that are put into the toolbox of government, regulation is one of the most powerful things for this type of issue, a collective action issue.
[00:06:43] Adrian Brown: Carina, you’re doing a fantastic job of making regulation not just sound interesting, but one of the things that’s gonna save the planet.
But I know you’ve also been speaking to some other people, uh, who we’ve been in touch with as CPI, who’ve also got a perspective on regulations. So perhaps introduce the [00:07:00] first, the first of the guests, uh, that we’re gonna hear from today.
[00:07:03] Carina Gormley: We had the absolute pleasure of speaking with Connie Binkowitz.
[00:07:10] Connie Binkowitz:Hi, I am Connie Binkowitz and I am the Director for Development of Public Policy at the Center for Transforming Communities in Memphis, Tennessee.
[00:07:16] Carina Gormley: She has done incredible work with Shelby County in Tennessee around lead poisoning. For context, in this particular county of Tennessee, lead poisoning disproportionately impacts children of colour, and that’s been a huge issue when it comes to obviously health, equity and environmental justic within the community,
[00:07:37] Connie Binkowitz: I am a member of a group of individuals who are dedicated to addressing this lead issue here in in, in Memphis and Shelby County. We are actually looking for various ways by which we could bring community residents together, various stakeholders looking at addressing this contamination lead, lead prevention, lead remediation, and lead [00:08:00] exposure in a much more systematic fashion.
[00:08:04] Carina Gormley: Connie and her team conducted some amazing listening sessions, and they worked as a service provider network to learn and understand the problem, the fragmentation, the incomplete nature of the way that all of this works, and that kind of inspired this approach of mandatory annual lead testing for at-risk children and women of childbearing age, that’s gonna be incredibly differential for this community.
Connie thinks part of regulations infamy is down to past experiences within marginalised areas.
[00:08:35] Connie Binkowitz: There’s probably not a good understanding really, about what it takes to get something done through policy and regulatory change. So, but also understanding that and, and having an appreciation for what has been the impact of regulatory work, especially on communities of colour. Right.
You know, so there’s that cloud that comes with the past, you know, for some [00:09:00] regulatory work has been nothing but inimical to their health and their wellbeing. The other thing about it is that I think that in so many ways, we do not understand the various task activities and the timelines that actually make such a thing happen.
And also who are the, who are the parties involved in getting something like this changed, done right. Um, it’s not always just government. I mean, there’s business that influences government. Right. Um, and, and, and of also the, the, the lack of recognition of the power of community residents and, you know, our, uh, power as the individuals for whom these regulations are supposed to be set up to benefit.
Right. Um, and so I think that it, in a lot of ways, getting it right would be getting everybody to understand what this body of work is about and who gets to play and what are the factors that either support its passing or thwart its passing. And the [00:10:00] reality of whose influence is most, um, you know, powerful and where that comes from, and whose interests are actually being advanced by those different parties
[00:10:12] Carina Gormley Through her work in Memphis with CTC, Connie has learned that as with all work within legitimacy, it will take time to create the space for change to take place
[00:10:24] Connie Binkowitz: In this space for example, where we have in Memphis where we are talking about an initiative that is being funded by big organisations like Blue Meridian and Seeding Success where there’s groups of individuals and organisations that have not worked in the past, you know, brought together. What I have found and what I have sensed is just it’s a slow process. It takes a while for people to get to a place where they can talk openly and acknowledge the fears and anxieties that come with it, because it’s a system, right?
You know, at some point in time that system has its own [00:11:00] funny way of either reinforcing things that are good or you know, supplanting things that are happening. Folks might not even realise that to be successful for one, could possibly mean that the bias of the other. Nonetheless. The reality is if we really are going to be thinking about change, then we really have to be looking at the system and we are part of the system.
And part of this is really realising our, sometimes our complicity in what it is that we are experiencing. Um, and, and the courage to admit that and call it and admit as well, you know, to the need for us to own up to that complicity, the willingness to pause, right. And willingness to pause and willing to just see something for what it is.
It’s a very important component. I think in this work.
[00:11:51] Carina Gormley: When talking about systems work, Connie mentions the importance of timing. A haphazard approach can end up in more confusion and new problems [00:12:00] emerging. So while having enough hands to make a difference is great, we need to ensure that the hands are pulling the right levers to make positive systems change.
[00:12:09] Connie Binkowitz: We all feel that sense of urgency. But yeah, we also kinda like understand we also have business can be very, very fast, unfortunately, but the, the, the policy landscape can, can, can be rather slow. And so that’s the conflict that we are finding ourselves in. We’ve got community residents that are lead burdened and, and we’re, we’re going like, oh my gosh, but how do we deal with something like that?
We, it’s basically the child is being poisoned. What do we do? What happens also when we are thinking systems is that we get tempted to address and pull all the many levers that are in that system. And I think that in some ways this is again, that whole conversation around pause, around being reflective and, and, and, and, and, and being intentional.
How do we move? Slow enough, but deliberate enough [00:13:00] to be able to see the system whole and identify those levers, maybe two or three that actually have the greatest impact. Because sometimes what happens is that in, in the spirit of wanting to have everybody participate in, in the figuring out of what to do and, and the doing, we end up having so many people tinkering with a system that we actually end up not being able to identify yet again, what impacts we are making.
Assume for a moment that you are out of an orchestra, you know, surely the person who is in the percussion could be thinking, you know, unless they’re,you know, go like, oh my gosh, can I, can I do my thing now?
But no, you have a time and a place when you are going to be the centrepiece and you are going to be the one to go and beat the drum and play, you know, and hit the symbols. And then that’s it. [00:14:00] But if you did it before that it just wouldn’t be the right thing to do. I don’t really quite know whether we are, we who are working in the systems are beginning to understand the importance of that waiting, that, that understanding, that trust actually that your time will come with the time comes.
But right now together we will figure out what are those two or three levers that have the greatest potential for impact for the, you know, for the population we want to serve.
[00:14:30] Adrian Brown: So I’ve been, I’ve been doing this kind of work for a long time and, uh, at, at CPI, sort of systems thinking, taking a systems approach, but Connie has really opened my mind up to the role that regulation can play in systems change.
I’ve never thought of it like that way before, and, and she just expressed it so beautifully, this idea of how regulation, which is a tool and perhaps sometimes can be thought of as quite a blunt instrument to sort of [00:15:00] rules and regulations that, that kind of forbid you from doing one thing or another can actually be quite a subtle, uh, device and, and a, and a device that forces you to perhaps pause, to perhaps wait to perhaps think differently to engage people in a different way.
So that, that’s just really fascinating to me, Carina that, uh, regulation. Um, has those aspects to it and relates to systems change in a way I’ve never even thought of.
[00:15:24] Carina Gormley: Yes. I think regulation is so interesting in that it can often, I think feel like a blunt tool. You put it nicely there, but it can also be incredibly subtle and if it’s done right, I think it’s subtle because often as a community it’s hard to accept change, particularly when it’s got asort of legal nature to it, right?
Regulation comes with a bit of fear, right? Because compliance is mandatory, and that’s a lot to adjust to for people. A really good regulation should hopefully come in at a [00:16:00] place in time where the adjustment period isn’t actually that dramatic for people because ideally there’s already been a bit of the change towards whatever it is that folks are trying to regulate, and there’s already a clear sense of what good behaviour looks like and that regulation is actually supporting that.
And I think that’s part of it too, is like regulation can also be formulated in a combination of certainly like these are not the things that you shouldn’t be doing, but also like regulating behaviour can include rewarding behaviour, and there are opportunities that come from regulation, right? It can turbocharge new areas of the economy, right, that are built in response or around the transition. It’s a really rich and interesting space.
[00:16:46] Adrian Brown: Well, it’s been a fascinating first, after this podcast and after the break, we’ll be hearing from Thomas Johnson from The Greater Manchester Combined Authority to learn about how public service reform and regulation can work hand in hand.
[00:17:00] So stay with us.
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[00:17:20] Carina Gormley: Our second guest is Thomas Johnson from the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. We talked about his work on something called Public Service Reform. Here’s Thomas to explain what that is and give a brief rundown of what’s going on in Greater Manchester.
[00:17:34] Thomas Johnson: My name’s Thomas Johnson and I’m from the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, and my work focuses on reform, or more precisely the reform of public services.
So we’re interested in a range of different issues focused around how public services can work better for people and families.
[00:17:48] Carina Gormley: Thomas makes the point that regulation is interlinked with accountability. And as Connie says, regulation is just as much about the people that work in the system as it is about the systemic levers they pull.
[00:17:59] Thomas Johnson: As well as [00:18:00] many other areas kind of in, in the UK, but particularly in Great Manchester, we’ve been on this journey of public service reform, which has, I suppose, been an effort to try and understand how public services can first of all, best serve the people that they’re meant to serve. What is, what is the best, the very best they can be? But also, I guess, what would be a better way of the local state organising itself, and what would be a better way of kind of creating a better relationship between the state and the people that it’s supposed to serve?
How do you wrap public services around people, um, so that they work better? In the interest of people from their perspective, but this kind of developing interest in kind of the importance of how accountability works in public services and how regulation has a big impact on the way public services works, has come from that.
[00:18:49] Adrian Brown: So this idea of wrapping services around people so they work better, I think that’s something Connie was alluding to as well earlier on. How, how do we see this working in practice? [00:19:00]
[00:19:00] Carina Gormley: I think the way that we see this working in practice ideally is that folks in government are doing a lot of engagement beforehand and in the practice of drafting up a regulation that they’re not doing it in isolation, that they’re connecting with community members to really understand how this is going to affect people once in place.
And that involves really speaking to a diverse range of people in communities, right? To better understand what the domino effect of a regulation is, to make sure that those effects, if truly adverse to people on the ground can be prevented in advance so that the regulation is written in a subtle, articulate way.
And I think it kind of gets back to Connie’s point as well, which is that oftentimes these tools, you can end up having lots of agency over lots of different spaces once you’re writing a regulation because you realise that once you set a certain rule in place, [00:20:00] that’s gonna have lots of downstream implications for communities that you may never have anticipated would’ve been affected by a particular thing.
So having something really wrap around people and have services that make sense, right, that are smart, involves really understanding what people’s needs are and what their day-to-day lives are like, so that the regulation can fit seamlessly in with what’s already happening.
[00:20:26] Thomas Johnson: I think first of all, I’d say, well actually, why bother talking about accountability and regulation? And I use those two words kind of in tandem all the time because they’re slightly different things, but they kind of come together. So I suppose accountability is kind of saying who is responsible for something, you know, in terms of the kind of public service system or the states, like which organisation or which professional or which leader is responsible for something.
Whereas regulation is kind of a mechanism for kind of achieving accountability or regulation is about accountability, but not all [00:21:00] accountability is about regulation.
[00:21:04] Carina Gormley: I liked how Thomas brings up this tension that if a government says they plan to regulate a product or process, they need to have the bandwidth or distributed network of support to effectively manage the thing they’re regulating.
The problem with current regulatory systems is that there are so many potentially responsible parties that it’s rarely clear who’s actually supposed to manage what regulation relies on lots of actors to effectively coordinate with one another, which usually requires a level of centralised operation and strategy that’s hard to enact, assuming it exists in the first place.
[00:21:41] Thomas Johnson: Accountability and regulation can be a really good thing. Um, it is important for kind of keeping people safe. It’s important for improving public services. I, I think, I think there’s an element of it, which is about kind of creating the space for innovation and learning. It’s a really important part of it, but that’s not the only argument.
I think there is actually a really important [00:22:00] enabling role. For accountability, um, and, and regulation. It can be, um, a really, really good thing at the moment. Accountability and regulation, it’s quite disparate and it’s quite asymmetrical in the system. So different organisations are accountable for different parts of a kind of person’s life, if you like.
And they also public sector regulators, um, regulate different elements of somebody’s life. You know, you could take local, local authority, local government as an example. In one respect, they are accountable to their residents through the electoral, local electoral system. But all their kind of major services are also subject to kind of regulation from individual, uh, and separate kind of regulators.
So, you know, even if we said like, okay, accountability and regulation can be really enabling, it would need to work as a single system, just as we are trying to work, um, as a place-based system around public service delivery. So that would also need to be mirrored in the accountability world and in the regulatory world.
[00:22:54] Carina Gormley: As Thomas says, having this mechanism operate as a single system is [00:23:00] critical for a regulation or a regulating body to get the credibility that they need to build the trust with community to be taken seriously, right. And I think we’re seeing in many areas a crisis around this relationship between governments and communities, in part because communities don’t necessarily trust that they understand where things are coming from, that they see their government for who they are, in part because they don’t necessarily have insight into the complex fragmented nature that a lot of public servants are kind of working within.
And I think that becomes a detriment to regulation.
[00:23:41] Thomas Johnson: If you want to change the public service system, if you want to kind of reform public services, you know, you can go so far with campaigning. You can go so far with taking a, trying to kind of change the culture, change the mindsets, and change the relationships, uh, with, with, with citizens and so on and so [00:24:00] forth.
But sooner or later you end up with these kind of barriers in the system or dampeners, or areas in the system, which act as kind of blockages, which you just can’t get past. And it’s almost like having this kind of tug of war with, with these issues in the system. So you might say, well, we want to take a person-centred approach, we wanna take a community-led approach, we wanna take a relational approach. Um, you can get so far with kind of developing a culture, I. But then you’re in this kind of unwinnable, tug of war with some of these key issues in the system. The list is kind of fairly long, but some of the key ones, the way funding works, who’s accountable?
Who’s gonna get in trouble if something goes wrong? Um, what is a service set up to do, et cetera. I’d kinda describe them as limiters in the system.
[00:24:41] Carina Gormley: Another issue is how regulators are seen culturally. Sometimes dealing with regulators can be like getting sent to the headmaster’s office, so how do we make regulations less scary?
[00:24:53] Thomas Johnson: Accountability and regulators have got almost like status in the system. They are listened to, I suppose is the simple [00:25:00] way of putting it. And you could say, you could take a negative perspective on that and say, well, well actually we’re not gonna do anything just in case we get in trouble in terms of our accountability or in terms of our kind of regulatory responsibilities.
But you could say, well, actually, regulators or kind of, um, legislation has stakes in the system, people listen to it. What would happen if you said, well, actually public services need to be primarily accountable to a range of different outcomes that a person experiences? Well, actually, um, the primary purpose of kind of a regulator of public services needs to be to inspect how well
public services work together, how well they are able to respond to the holistic needs of an individual or a community or a family. Um, that could be quite a powerful enabling role for, for the state or for, um, public service regulators. But there is scope to kind of develop that enabling role of, of, of regulators, which I think is underexplored.
It’s not just a negative thing, I think is the point.
[00:25:55] Carina Gormley: Thomas also believes that there is something in our collective mindset around regulatory [00:26:00] approach, especially when problems are uncovered.
[00:26:02] Thomas Johnson: You know, if you’re being honest, there are lots of political issues around regulation and accountability, because on a more fundamental level, you know, this is kind of partly about asking questions about blame, responsibility, risk, particularly in a public service environment or a public environment.
So people or the, or the system, or the current mode of thinking at the moment is that actually when something goes wrong. So that, you know, in that might be around a serious case review, or whether it’s around policing or poor schooling or whatever it might be, somebody has to be responsible for that. Um, so there’s something about our mindset and our understanding about the way we approach blame and risk, uh, uh, and, and vulnerability in society.
And also, I suppose if you get, if you, if you get even more philosophical about it, the way we understand causality, so what leads to what? And I think there isn’t a kind of an understanding or the, the current paradigm around kind of blame and risk, is bound in that kind of, we must find somebody to blame, we must find somebody to be [00:27:00] accountable.
So there’s, there’s something quite profound in terms of mindset there. It’s not a simple issue. Um, and you would need to kind of be up for a, kind of a long journey of exploration in terms of understanding why, um, you might need to, um, change regulatory, uh, regulatory approach, but also how you might do that.
And that can’t be just solved by one person or kind of, um, one, one workshop or one, um, focus group. It has to be a bigger, bigger kind of conversation in communities, in society, if you like.
[00:27:28] Carina Gormley: Finally we look to the future. What does good look like in accountability and regulation?
[00:27:34] Thomas Johnson: So if you were to ask me, um, what might be the end result, what would good look like in terms of kind of reform of accountability, um, and, and regulation?
I would say, well, actually, you know, what progress would be, first of all, um, people understanding how and why accountability is so important to good public service delivery. And then following on from that, I would say, well, actually at the moment there are [00:28:00] so many different accountability arrangements to different parts of the public service system to different parts of central government.
Actually, even if we were able to have a single conversation around how accountability should, should work whole scale in a place from a place-based approach, that would be massive progress. That even before we get to, you know, the methods of, you know, how you, how you do accountability and what regulation looks like if we were doing it together.
From a place point of view, from, in an integrated way, that would be, you know, that that would be groundbreaking in and of itself.
[00:28:45] Adrian Brown: So again, Thomas has done a fantastic job there of explaining how regulation can work in a, in a wider, more complex, more systemic context. And it sounds like the work that’s happening there in, in [00:29:00] Greater Manchester is really groundbreaking in one way, in, in sort of asking some tough questions about what regulation should be.
He was, as he said, he is getting a bit philosophical and sort of what, what’s even the sort of underlying mental model upon which regulation is sitting. Uh, so I think, I think that’s fascinating. But there were clearly a lot of parallels between, uh, what Thomas was saying there and, and some of the themes that, that Connie was also highlighting.
What, what stood out for you, Carina, there was so much there, it’s so rich, but what, what are some of the highlights for you from those two?
[00:29:34] Carina Gormley: I feel like I learned so much from Connie and Thomas both. I think Connie had this amazing view of regulation as being, I think the metaphor of orchestra was brilliant, of seeing it as part of this system where regulation also has this timing component that’s so important that you need to wait and be part of [00:30:00] a series of moving parts and coming at the right time and with the right note. And I think that’s really real when it comes to regulation. Because you really do need to come in at the right time, when people really need it, when people are ready for it.
I think that’s particularly true with climate, right? We’re seeing that in the space of climate action. You really need to make sure that people are ready for the regulation that you’re setting forth. Otherwise, it can backfire. It’s highly political. Right. I also loved how she talked about this point of discipline that we need to, you know, as folks either working in government or supporting government, make sure that we’re not creeping on our scope here, that we understand our lane and are sticking to it and are also rigourous on the other side of things, to engage communities early, to speak with diverse stakeholders and ensure that we’re making smart regulations because ultimately regulations have incredible power.
So we need to be ready if we’re putting out a regulation, to understand and [00:31:00] honor and respect how much that’s going to impact the lives of people. Right? It’s a really big role to play. It’s a huge responsibility. So being able to do that with communities in mind because you’ve brought them in early so that they feel also reflected and regulation ultimately, that’s the point.
So it should be a reflection of communities who will be impacted by the regulation. I also think Thomas had amazing philosophical points to make about the system, right? How it’s fragmented on the inside, and that that creates these structural challenges that it needs to be seen as part of a broader single service. I loved that term, right? Like how could we be thinking about regulation as part of what it means to be serving the community and to be doing the work of governance?
And I think that being able to think about the system as a whole in that work was something that Connie and Thomas both spoke about and is incredibly important, [00:32:00] particularly again, like,if you’re trying to understand the impact regulation is gonna have, you have to go downstream first. Understand the problems as they’re existing now, and understand ways of working so that regulations built alongside the way that things already operate and don’t create more challenges for people.
That’s what’s gonna create the cycle of communities and businesses looking at regulation with disdain or skepticism is when they feel like, when governments are trying to help govern society to be better for everybody, it ends up creating a bunch of headaches, right? And that’s ultimately what you don’t want.
And I think what Thomas was getting at gets us closer to having a reality where regulation plays this complimentary and subtle role, right in, in the lives that we lead. And a very powerful one too. Of course.
[00:32:53] Adrian Brown: Very well put. And that’s a great place to end. Genuine inspiration that comes from our conversation about regulation.
Carina, [00:33:00] you’ve been a fantastic, uh, co-host on today’s episode. Thanks so much for, for joining me today.
[00:33:06] Carina Gormley: It’s been a joy to be with you today, Adrian. Thanks for having me.
[00:33:11] Adrian Brown: So that concludes this episode of Reimagining Government. Thank you to my co-host of this episode, Carina Gomley. And if you are a public servant or policymaker, we want to hear from you.
How can we shake our past associations with regulation and use it as a power for good? You can call into the show through our answer machine. Head over to speak pipe.com/reimagininggovernment and leave us a message. And please be aware that we may play these out on the show. If you prefer to write to us, you can email comms@centreforpublicimpact.org to let us know what topics we should cover in future episodes.
And finally, please remember to leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform and let us know your thoughts on the series. Until next time, I’ve been Adrian Brown. [00:34:00] Goodbye.