How to use the Regulatory burden measure | Guidance notes
Set up compliance cost form
Before using the RBM to calculate compliance costs, you may first need to set up the compliance cost constraints at the proposal level.
The compliance cost constraints are the basis or assumptions of calculating the compliance costs of your proposal.
You may need to set up your constraints based on the following assumptions:
- Whether you proposal impacts business, community organisation or individual cost segments.
- Whether your ongoing costs per year are constant (never change) or variable (change per year).
- Whether you're costing by size of the businesses and/or community organisations affected.
Note: Compliance costs for most regulatory proposals are constant per year, but some proposals would have variable ongoing costs per year.
Choosing by size of business and community organisations
This choice is made at the proposal level.
Business by size according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics is defined as:
- Small business: if employing less than 20 workers.
- Medium business: if employing 20 or more workers, but less than 200 workers.
- Large business: if employing 200 or more workers.
A community organisation is any organisation engaged in charitable or other community-based activity operating under Australian law and not established for the purpose of making a profit..
Note: Some compliance costs depend on the size of the business/organisation. For example, the 'licence fee' may change depending on whether the business is small, medium or large.
Calculating the total number of businesses affected at the option level
If you're costing your proposal by size of business, each option total will be the sum of the number of small, medium, and/or large businesses affected by the option you’ve created.
The total number of businesses affected at the activity level
The total number of small, medium and large businesses and/or community organisations affected at the activity level under an option must always be smaller or equal to the number of corresponding size of businesses at the option level.