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Formal consultation when designing new rules and regulations is a commonly used method to ensure regulatory quality. The foundation for this method of involvement is that it allows transparent and open transfer of knowledge from for instance organised interests to government bodies, and that it enables an easier filtering of expert advice from political idiosyncrasies among consultation partners. It is, however, an open question as to whether consultation is in fact efficient in doing so. To investigate that questions, this paper examines the Danish formal consultation system. The study examines response rates and concludes that the Danish consultation system is highly – and perhaps increasingly so – prioritised both in the administration and among consultation partners. However, previous studies have shown that the system has little practical effect on legislation. These two – response rates and amenability – are then coupled to discuss the system's efficiency. The system's inefficiency – it demands a lot of energy and priority but has little effect – stress that the main function of the system cannot be said to be its contribution to regulatory quality. Instead, it serves other aims – aims that are not reflected in the system's design and use. This causes a mismatch between expectations and practice and calls for renewed discussion – both theoretical and practical – on the role of formal consultation systems.

Formal consultation when designing new rules and regulations is a commonly used method to ensure regulatory quality. The foundation for this method of involvement is that it allows transparent and open transfer of knowledge from for instance organised interests to government bodies, and that it enables an easier filtering of expert advice from political idiosyncrasies among consultation partners. It is, however, an open question as to whether consultation is in fact efficient in doing so. To investigate that questions, this paper examines the Danish formal consultation system. The study examines response rates and concludes that the Danish consultation system is highly – and perhaps increasingly so – prioritised both in the administration and among consultation partners. However, previous studies have shown that the system has little practical effect on legislation. These two – response rates and amenability – are then coupled to discuss the system's efficiency. The system's inefficiency – it demands a lot of energy and priority but has little effect – stress that the main function of the system cannot be said to be its contribution to regulatory quality. Instead, it serves other aims – aims that are not reflected in the system's design and use. This causes a mismatch between expectations and practice and calls for renewed discussion – both theoretical and practical – on the role of formal consultation systems.

Consultation of interests is often seen as a source of both input and output legitimacy. However, consultation only strengthens output legitimacy if it leads to improvements in legislative proposals. This detailed study of consultation reports in Denmark – chosen as a most-likely case when it comes to consultation having an effect on the substance of laws – shows a major difference in the amenability of different governmental branches but that, in general, the authorities do not listen much despite a strong tradition of consultation. This risks jeopardising the transfer of knowledge from societal actors to administrations, thus having a detrimental effect on the potential that consultation has to strengthen output legitimacy.

AbstractBetter regulation is of grave importance to the European Union, as it is seen as a way of obtaining output legitimacy. To achieve this, the European Commission has established a so-called REFIT Stakeholder Platform where stakeholders' proposals for more effective and efficient EU law are discussed. The central premise for this meta-regulatory instrument is depoliticisation of the REFIT program and the whole better regulation agenda. To ensure this, the European Commission plays a crucial gatekeeping role by only granting access for proposals that echo that premise and by securing depoliticised deliberation afterwards. Utilising a novel typology linking regulatory reform proposals to the risk of politicisation, the argument advanced in this article is that only a minority of the proposals to be considered by Platform members have a low risk of depoliticisation. This, it is argued, is due to the Commission not having a sufficiently well-developed understanding of the premises for REFIT it has itself established.