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Red Tape Council
Subject: Call for evidence on agenda item RT-001
Call for evidence: Red Tape Council agenda item RT-001
1. Purpose of this call
1.The Red Tape Council invites owners of small businesses to report their experiences with administrative requirements that make it harder to start, operate, change, or close a business. This includes steps administered by public authorities and, where relevant to an official process, by a body acting under public authority. The council is seeking evidence from businesses in every country and from businesses at every stage of operation.
2.This is a call for evidence, not a finding that a particular rule or process is unfair, unlawful, or unnecessarily burdensome. The council has not yet adopted a standard or a set of recommendations. It will first test whether reported difficulties show a recurring pattern, then prepare a draft response for public consultation if the evidence supports proceeding.
3.The agenda item is designated RT-001. The question is broad: when a business must comply with a rule, obtain a permit, register information, or seek a decision from an authority, what features of the process create avoidable uncertainty, delay, repetition, or expense? Reports about good or workable processes are also welcome. They can help the council distinguish a specific difficulty from a feature that is necessary, proportionate, or already handled effectively.
4.The council’s investigation is guided by a practical concern: a process that is manageable for a large organization may impose a different burden on an owner who has little time, limited administrative support, and responsibility for day-to-day operations. That is a question to investigate, not a conclusion to assume. Evidence from owners will help establish what happens in practice, to whom, how often, and with what consequences.
5.Reseated is a global assembly of small-business owners, organized in seven councils. It launched on 10 February 2026. At launch, the Assembly has 20 members in 18 countries and has received five reports from five countries across the Assembly: four concerning Platform and one concerning Cashflow. The Red Tape Council has three members in three countries and has received no reports. Those figures are a starting position only; they do not establish the prevalence or absence of administrative problems.
2. Why the council is asking
6.Micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises are a major part of economies around the world. The United Nations reports that MSMEs represent about 90 per cent of businesses, 60 to 70 per cent of employment, and about 50 per cent of GDP worldwide.1 The International Labour Organization estimates that MSMEs account for about 70 per cent of employment worldwide and that about 80 per cent operate in the informal economy.2 These are worldwide estimates, not measures of the specific processes this council is investigating.
7.The figures explain why administrative design deserves careful attention. They do not show that every small business faces the same rules, has the same resources, or encounters the same outcome. Requirements differ across jurisdictions and sectors. A process may serve a valid public purpose while still being difficult to understand or complete. Conversely, a step that appears slow or demanding to one applicant may be required to protect safety, rights, public funds, or other legitimate interests. Reports should describe the actual process and the facts known to the owner.
8.The council will examine the business experience of administrative processes rather than rank countries or presume that one legal system should be copied by another. It will ask whether owners can find the applicable requirements, submit information through a workable route, understand when a decision is due, and know what happens if an authority does not respond. It will also ask whether the requirements are clear about the information and evidence needed, and whether the owner can correct an error or seek review.
9.The council is particularly interested in costs that may be difficult to see in a formal fee schedule: time spent finding instructions, repeated submissions of the same information, travel, translation, professional assistance, missed work, delayed opening, or uncertainty about whether a business may proceed. These costs should be reported as specifically as the owner reasonably can. An estimate should be identified as an estimate; it should not be presented as an audited or exact amount.
3. Scope and questions for owners
10.For this call, an administrative process means a sequence of actions an owner must take, or a decision the owner must obtain, to comply with a public requirement or receive a public authorization, registration, permit, inspection, or service connected with business activity. The council welcomes reports about national, regional, provincial, municipal, or other local processes. It also welcomes accounts of interactions between levels of government where an owner has to navigate more than one authority.
11.A report may concern starting a business, renewing or varying an authorization, registering premises or workers, making a required filing, requesting an inspection, obtaining a decision, or completing another official process. The list is illustrative, not exhaustive. Owners may describe a process even if they do not know its formal legal name. They may also report a process that worked well, including a change that made it easier to comply.
12.The council asks owners to consider the following questions. A person does not need to answer every question. A short account of one well-described event can be more useful than a broad statement that does not identify what happened.
- What were you trying to do? For instance, were you opening, renewing, changing, registering, reporting, or seeking a decision?
- Which level or type of authority handled the process? If known, what was the name of the form, permit, filing, service, or rule? Do not guess if you are unsure.
- What steps did the instructions require, and in what order? Were instructions available in a language and format you could use?
- How did you submit information or communicate with the authority? Could you complete the process online, in person, by post, or through another route? Did the available route work in practice?
- Were the requested documents and information clear? Did you have to submit the same information more than once, or provide information that you could not reasonably obtain?
- How long did each important step take? Please distinguish time spent by you from time spent waiting for an authority, and distinguish a known deadline from an estimate.
- Were service times or decision dates published? If a date was given, was it met? If no date was given, how did you know what to expect?
- What happened when you asked a question, corrected a mistake, or sought a status update? Was there a clear contact point or a route to challenge or review a decision?
- What direct costs did you incur, such as fees, travel, printing, translation, or professional assistance? What other business consequences followed, such as delayed trading or time diverted from paid work?
- Did the process affect the ability to open, continue, or change the business? If it did, please describe the connection rather than assuming that the process was the only cause.
- Was the difficulty repeated, or did it occur once? Do you know whether other owners or businesses experienced the same issue? Please say how you know.
- What change, if any, would have made the process clearer or more workable while preserving its stated purpose?
13.The council is examining several possible areas for evidence: whether a small-business impact assessment is used when a new rule is designed; whether an owner can find a one-stop digital route for a process; whether published service times make the expected steps and waiting periods clear; and what should happen when an authority does not decide an application within a stated period.
These are questions for investigation. This call does not endorse a particular legal mechanism, require that every process be digital, or presume that the absence of a decision should automatically grant permission.
14.An offline route may be essential for people who lack reliable internet access, accessible digital tools, or the required equipment or skills. A digital service may also be useful if it is accessible, secure, understandable, and supported when something goes wrong. The council therefore asks owners to describe the route that was actually available to them and whether an alternative existed. “One-stop” should not be taken to mean that every service can be combined into one website or that a single authority controls all relevant decisions.
15.The council welcomes evidence about differences in impact. A process may affect businesses differently because of their location, size, sector, language, disability access needs, business model, or available staff. Please provide only the detail you consider safe to share. No owner is required to disclose sensitive personal information or to explain a personal characteristic in order to make a report.
4. International legal comparison
16.This call does not make comparative findings about the laws of any country. The council will not state that a particular legal rule exists, or characterize it as a best practice, unless a relevant legal text is identified and checked. The Assembly’s process requires reports first, followed by a five-part pattern test, a draft response, public consultation, and an Assembly ballot. A legal comparison cannot substitute for evidence about how a process operates for owners.
17.Owners who wish to refer to a law, regulation, official policy, form, permit condition, or published service standard may identify it in their report. Please provide the jurisdiction, title or reference number if known, issuing authority, relevant section or page, and a copy or public location if available. A link is helpful but is not required. If the material is not publicly accessible, say so and explain what you have seen. Do not reproduce confidential material or provide personal information belonging to someone else.
18.The council will distinguish the text of a rule from its administration. A written deadline may differ from the time an owner experiences in practice; a published digital route may not be usable in every case; and an informal explanation may not have the same status as a formal decision. Reports should make clear whether a statement comes from an official document, a communication with an authority, the owner’s direct experience, or the owner’s interpretation.
19.Where the council later compares legal approaches, it will identify the relevant jurisdiction and instrument, use the source material available for review, and explain the limits of the comparison. It will not assume that a rule can be transplanted between countries without regard to legal authority, public purpose, administrative capacity, or local conditions. The present call asks for evidence that can help the council decide whether such comparison is warranted.
5. What counts as evidence
20.Evidence may be a first-hand account, a dated record, a copy of instructions or correspondence, a timeline kept by the owner, a fee receipt, a notice, or another material that helps establish what occurred. A report does not need to include documents to be considered. Owners may describe what they remember and may state openly where a date, amount, or step is approximate.
21.The most useful report gives enough detail to understand the sequence: what the owner needed to do, what the process required, what happened at each important stage, and what effect followed. Exact dates are useful where safe and available. If the owner cannot recall an exact date, a month, season, or approximate interval can still help. Please separate facts directly observed from conclusions or assumptions.
22.Evidence may include successful completion as well as difficulty. For instance, a report could explain that an application was acknowledged promptly but later stalled, or that a clear online form reduced repeated visits. A balanced account helps the council understand which part of a process worked and which part did not. Owners may also describe changes over time, while making clear what changed and when.
23.A report about another owner’s experience should identify it as second-hand. If possible, the person who experienced the process should submit their own account. Do not include another person’s name, contact details, application number, or records without their informed permission. A report of hearsay may help identify a question for follow-up, but it does not carry the same evidential weight as a direct account or a document that can be checked.
24.The council is interested in both individual cases and recurring experiences. A single report can reveal a serious issue or show how a process works, but one account alone does not establish how common the experience is. Owners should not try to recruit, coordinate, or duplicate reports to make a problem appear more widespread. If several owners submit accounts of separate experiences, each should describe their own experience rather than copy a common narrative.
25.A report may describe a problem without proving that the authority acted unlawfully or that a particular reform is legally available. The council is collecting evidence about practical effects and process design. It will avoid turning an owner’s account into a legal conclusion unless an appropriately supported analysis later justifies that conclusion.
6. The five-part pattern test and counting
26.Reseated uses a five-part pattern test before it advances a problem toward a draft fix. The parts are Volume, Frequency, Consistency, Spread, and Corroboration. The test is a disciplined way to ask whether the evidence supports collective consideration. It is not a formula that decides an individual report’s truth, and it does not turn a report count into a measure of the total number of businesses affected.
| Part | Question for review | What a report may help establish |
|---|---|---|
| Volume | How many distinct reports describe the issue? | Whether the record includes more than one distinct account, while avoiding the assumption that submissions represent all businesses. |
| Part | Question for review | What a report may help establish |
|---|---|---|
| Frequency | How often does the difficulty occur? | Whether the owner describes a recurring event, a continuing delay, or an isolated incident. |
| Part | Question for review | What a report may help establish |
|---|---|---|
| Consistency | Do accounts describe materially similar features? | Whether separate reports identify a common step, requirement, delay, uncertainty, or consequence. |
| Part | Question for review | What a report may help establish |
|---|---|---|
| Spread | Where and among whom does the issue appear? | Whether reports concern one process or different settings, and what locations or business circumstances are represented. |
| Part | Question for review | What a report may help establish |
|---|---|---|
| Corroboration | Can accounts be checked against other evidence? | Whether documents, separate direct accounts, or other reliable material support relevant details. |
27.Each report is reviewed as an individual submission before it is considered as part of a pattern. The council will take reasonable steps to identify duplicate submissions and to distinguish distinct experiences from repeated descriptions of the same event. If one owner submits an update or additional documents, that material may strengthen the original report, but it will not automatically be counted as a second independent report.
28.The council will not treat every report as equal evidence for every part of the test. A clear account may be useful on frequency but provide little information about spread. A document may corroborate a deadline but say nothing about how common a delay is. The nature and limits of the material will be recorded. The test is qualitative as well as numerical: a larger number of vague or copied accounts cannot replace clear, independent evidence.
29.Country counts and report counts will be described with care. A report’s country refers to the jurisdiction or place relevant to the experience, as provided by the submitter. It should not be inferred from a person’s name, language, or presumed residence. Where a process crosses borders or levels of government, the submission may identify more than
one relevant place. The council will explain its approach if that affects a published total.
30.The council will not infer that a country has no problem because it has no reports, nor that a problem is widespread merely because multiple reports come from one location. At the date of this call, the Red Tape Council has no reports to assess. It therefore has no evidentiary basis for a conclusion on Volume, Frequency, Consistency, Spread, or Corroboration for RT-001. The council will publish later assessments only when the record supports them.
7. Privacy, anonymity, and safe reporting
31.Members of Reseated are anonymous unless they choose a public seat. The council’s reporting process is designed to permit owners to describe an experience without naming their business. Do not include your business name, trading name, website, exact address, or any other detail that identifies the business unless you have deliberately chosen to provide it and understand why it is needed.
32.Please avoid including names or direct contact information for officials, employees, customers, suppliers, or other individuals. If a document contains personal data, redact it before submission where practical. Remove account numbers, passwords, signatures, personal addresses, identification numbers, customer data, and other confidential information that is not necessary to explain the process. If a document cannot be safely shared in full, describe the relevant part instead.
33.A report may be submitted without identifying the owner publicly. Anonymity does not mean that the council can verify every detail without follow-up. If a submitter provides a way to contact them, the council may ask for clarification or supporting information. The submitter may decline to answer. The council will not describe an unverified detail as verified merely because it has been submitted.
34.Before submitting, consider whether sharing the account or documents could affect an application, relationship, legal position, or personal safety. Do not send material that you are not entitled to disclose. The call does not provide legal
advice and does not promise that every document can be kept confidential in all circumstances. The council will handle submissions with care and will seek to limit identifying details in any public material, but owners should not submit information whose disclosure would put them or another person at unacceptable risk.
35.The council may summarize evidence for its review and may later publish an aggregate account of what was received. Public reporting should avoid identifying a member or business unless they have expressly chosen to be identified. The council will describe the evidence accurately, preserve relevant differences between reports, and avoid attributing a statement to a named authority or company unless the matter is properly documented and the attribution is necessary and appropriate.
8. How to take part from any country and language
36.Owners may submit a report from any country. No membership status is required to contribute evidence. A person may describe a local, regional, national, or cross-border process. The report should identify the place relevant to the experience as precisely as is safe and practical; it need not identify the submitter’s business.
37.Reports may be written in the language in which the owner can explain the experience most accurately. Do not delay submitting a useful account because you are unable to translate it into English. Where possible, include the original text and a translation, and say who prepared the translation. If no translation is available, submit the original language and the council will consider how it can review the material. The council will not treat a person’s language or writing style as a measure of credibility.
38.To make a report, provide a brief description of the process and answer the questions in section 3 that are relevant to your experience. You may attach supporting material after removing unnecessary identifying or sensitive information. If you cannot provide an exact date or amount, state that it is approximate. If a point is unknown, say so rather than guessing. Reports should be factual, respectful, and limited to information the submitter can share.
39.An owner may send one report about one experience and add a later update if something material changes. If the owner has distinct experiences involving different processes, they may describe them separately or clearly distinguish them within one submission. The council may ask the submitter to clarify which process or event each detail relates to. A report should not combine unrelated incidents in a way that makes the sequence impossible to assess.
40.Owners who need an accessible way to contribute may explain what accommodation would help. The council welcomes reports through an appropriate route that enables participation without requiring a particular device, format, or level of technical skill. This call does not prescribe a single submission format. Any supporting material should be supplied only if the owner can do so safely and lawfully.
9. What happens after submission
41.The council will review incoming reports for relevance, clarity, duplication, and potential follow-up. A report may be relevant even if it does not provide every detail requested. The council may ask a submitter whether they are willing to clarify a date, process step, or consequence. A submitter’s choice not to respond will not by itself establish that the report is inaccurate.
42.The council will then consider the collected evidence under the five-part pattern test. If the evidence supports advancing the issue, the next step is preparation of a draft fix. The draft will be a proposal, not a decision. It will explain the problem being addressed, the evidence and limits of that evidence, and the intended effect of the proposed change.
43.A draft fix will be opened to public consultation. That stage allows owners and other relevant participants to comment on whether the evidence is fairly presented, whether the proposed response is workable, and whether there are unintended consequences or important differences between jurisdictions. The council may revise the draft in response to consultation evidence.
44.Any final proposal will proceed to an Assembly ballot under the Assembly’s process. Adoption by the Assembly would establish Reseated’s position; it would not itself change a law, issue a permit, direct an authority, or bind a government. If adopted, the Assembly may send letters to the chief executives or other decision-makers able to consider the proposal. The council will track seats as Proposed, Letter sent, Delivered, Replied, Signed, or Empty chair, and will report their status without inventing or implying a reply that has not been received.
45.The stages are intended to keep evidence, proposals, and institutional decisions distinct. A person who submits evidence is not being asked to endorse a future draft or ballot. Participation in a call does not imply support for any particular solution. The council’s task is to determine whether a recurring and sufficiently supported issue exists before asking the Assembly to consider a response.
10. Closing statement
46.Administrative requirements can serve important purposes. The council’s inquiry is whether, in practice, owners can understand and complete them without avoidable uncertainty, repeated effort, or unexplained delay. The answer will depend on evidence and may differ between processes and places.
47.The Red Tape Council begins this work with three members in three countries and no RT reports. It makes no claim at this stage about how many owners encounter a particular difficulty. Owners are invited to help establish the record with direct, specific, and, where possible, corroborated accounts. A report need not be long or legally framed. It should describe what happened, what is known, what remains uncertain, and how the process affected the business.
48.The council will use those accounts to test whether a pattern exists, not to presume one. If evidence supports a proposal, it will be made public for comment before an Assembly ballot. That sequence is intended to give small-business owners a disciplined way to bring administrative experience into a collective process while preserving the distinction between a reported experience, a tested pattern, and an adopted recommendation.
Sources
[1] United Nations, Micro-, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Day.
[2] International Labour Organization, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises.
Notes and sources
Sources
This document has no standing until adopted under the Founders Charter. Reseated Councils is not affiliated with the United Nations.