National Center for Bureaucracy Cost Reduction (NZBA)

The National Center for Bureaucracy Cost Reduction (NZBA) has found its identity since 2007 in measuring bureaucracy costs for the norm addressees of business and enforcement administration. In doing so, it has applied and further developed the standard cost model in numerous projects for the federal government, individual federal ministries, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, municipalities, and business institutions. The NZBA is financed by the FHM. Third-party funding contracts are acquired and implemented.

Reducing administrative costs has been a central research area of the Fachhochschule des Mittelstands (FHM) since 2004/2005. Among other things, the first German-language method manual for the Standard Cost Model (First German Handbook for Measuring and Reducing Administrative Burdens) was published here, which was explicitly referred to in the explanatory memorandum to the law on the establishment of a National Regulatory Control Council.

Finally, in February 2007, the FHM established the National Center for Bureaucracy Cost Reduction (NZBA) as a dependent university institute (www.nzba.de). In the context of the establishment of the National Regulatory Control Council, the National Center for Bureaucracy Cost Reduction (NZBA) has set itself the task of supporting and promoting the reduction of bureaucracy costs in Germany. Since its establishment, the Standard Cost Model developed in the Netherlands has been at the forefront of this work as a method that has made bureaucracy measurable for the first time. The work of the NZBA is supported by a high-level board of trustees made up of personalities from politics, administration, business and science.

One research focus in 2008/2009 was the administrative costs of local authorities, the documentation of which was published by Nomos-Verlag under the title “Bürokratiekostenabbau in Deutschland” (Reducing administrative costs in Germany). This publication is based on a study conducted by the NZBA in 2008 and 2009, in which the administrative burden resulting from information obligations in public authorities was measured. The study found that German municipalities have to spend around 8 million working hours a year just to fulfill the information requirements imposed on them by federal, state and EU law. This corresponds to a total burden of approximately 400 million euros in administrative costs.

In 2010, the Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection commissioned the FHM to prepare an expert report on the information and enforcement costs for public administration resulting from the European Commission's proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a framework for the protection of soil and groundwater (soil framework directive, or SFDR for short) on the basis of the standard cost model. This means that, for the first time, a systematic cost estimate of the effects of a planned EU legal act in Germany is available before it comes into force.

In 2011, the NZBA presented a study on “State bureaucracy cost transfer as a current entrepreneurial problem” on behalf of the Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft. The study includes a directory of federal business obligations that are initiated and fulfilled free of charge, which are originally those of the state, but have been transferred to companies (so-called “indienstnahme” of private individuals), with a case study of the burden of selected employer obligations in a medium-sized family business.

In 2012 and 2013, the NZBA worked on a research project funded by the BMUB to develop a standard benefit model for regulatory impact assessment at the federal level. The aim of the project was to determine whether the benefits arising from legislative proposals could be quantified in addition to the costs. This project report was submitted to the Federal Chancellery in March 2013 to the then Federal Environment Minister Altmaier and Minister of State von Klaeden and presented at a side event of the Federal Government on the occasion of the UN Climate Change Conference in Doha, Qatar. The German Association for Legislation has awarded the project the 2nd prize for good legislation.

Most recently, the NZBA presented the first pilot measurement of the compliance costs for businesses and enforcement costs for the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, using the European Food Information Regulation (LMIV) and the Federal Implementation Regulation as examples. This was commissioned by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Energy, Industry, SMEs and Trade of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia and the SME Clearing House of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia at the North Rhine-Westphalia Chamber of Industry and Commerce.