Centre on Regulation and Competition

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Training &
Capacity Building

Visitors Programme

Training and capacity building within CRC concentrates mainly on the provision of tailor made workshops for specific organisations and sectors. These are usually donor assisted and delivered in country in collaboration with CRC overseas partners.

They can cover topics from the broad range of regulatory practice, including the development and implementation of competition policy, regulatory governance and regulatory impact assessment. Workshops can be utilised to enable policy makers and regulators to:

• Critically review relevant findings from CRC and evaluate their significance for the performance of their own institutions;
• exchange views on "good practice" models to improve regulatory performance;
• initiate a network of stakeholders interested in furthering effective regulatory practices

The CRC approach to capacity building also embraces the idea that policy makers and regulators should gain an understanding of the management and organisational processes of regulatory bodies with a view to developing improvements based on 'good practice' that fit the culture, context and needs of the situation. This approach rests on the principle that regulatory bodies beyond a certain threshold size are subject to the imposition of a management system that is ultimately the responsibility of a 'chief executive' or equivalent. This management system also is potentially sensitive to the views and needs of external stakeholders whether they have a role in influencing the regulatory process or are recipients of it. The conceptual framework embodied in this approach therefore goes far beyond the more conventional methods of capacity building which at their most simplistic level concentrate narrowly on staff development as the main means by which institutions can raise their capabilities. It aims to provide a diagnostic approach for those directly involved in institutions to enable questions to be raised and discussed concerning management performance and skills development as a prelude to the necessary actions for improvement.

The diagnostic approach enables these questions to be addressed by chief executives:

• how do senior regulatory staff embed the regulatory process through management actions that stress the contribution of staff?
• what evidence is available on the reality of management practices towards high performance as against the espoused views?
• how do chief executives evaluate the impact of the performance management system on the effectiveness of regulation?
• how are the learning and development needs of regulatory staff met?

This diagnostic approach to human resource and organisational development is available to organisations and sectors through two one week workshops (suitably spaced) which incorporate analytical and action planning approaches to improvement.

In June 2006 this programme will be offered as an international event in Manchester in a condensed version over two consecutive weeks. Details will be posted on this website in due course or alternatively, please feel free to contact the CRC Programmes Manager - Lesley.harris@manchester.ac.uk