Civil Service Legislation: Checklist on Secondary Legislation (and Other Regulatory Instruments)

This checklist is intended to supplement the Civil Service Legislation Contents Checklist, (Sigma Papers: No.5 OCDE/GD(96)21, February 1996). The previous checklist was principally concerned with matters that could usefully be considered when a civil service bill (i.e. the draft of primary legislation governing the civil service) was in preparation in a central and eastern European country. The present checklist deals with matters that can usefully be considered in connection with the secondary instruments that may be needed to implement the Civil Service Act enacted by the Parliament. It begins with a narrative section describing the types of instruments that are typically used for this purpose in OECD Member countries and factors that are widely taken into account when such instruments are being prepared and drafted. This is followed by a checklist of questions which law drafters in particular may find useful in the drafting process. These questions concern the general approach to secondary regulation rather than the substantive contents of instruments dealing with particular topics. Such contents are necessarily dictated by the contents and details of the primary legislation and are likely to vary considerably from one country to another. This checklist, as for the primary legislation checklist, is not intended as directions for approaching these matters but rather as guidance to best practice. Final choices must reflect local circumstances.