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Red Tape Council
RC/RT/2026/CL.3 — April letter from the Chair of the Red Tape Council
Dear members,
April did not bring a finished answer to the problem we are studying. It brought something just as important: a clearer view of how much evidence we have, where it comes from, and what we still need to understand before proposing a fix.
On 23 April, the Founders Assembly elected its first Board. That same day, the Assembly issued its first-quarter report, and the Platform Council published a pattern-review note. These are steps in building a working institution: setting responsibilities, reporting progress, and examining evidence before turning it into a standard. For the Red Tape Council, the discipline is the same. We should not confuse a frustrating experience with proof of a widespread pattern; we should test reports carefully and make our eventual proposal answer the problem members have documented.
What the numbers tell us
As of 27 April, the Assembly had 525 seated members in 49 countries and had received 1,310 reports from 50 countries. The Red Tape Council has 36 members in 18 countries and 54 reports from 22 countries. Those figures are not interchangeable: members are spread across 18 countries, while reports have come from 22. That wider reporting footprint matters. It gives us evidence from beyond the places where our current members are based.
All 54 Red Tape reports concern permits. The median amount at stake is approximately US$6,380. That does not mean every permit problem costs that amount, or that the median captures every burden. It gives us a grounded measure of what is tied up when a process stalls: money that a small firm cannot readily spare for an uncertain wait.
The reports are not coming from one kind of business or one country. The largest country counts are the United States with 10, India with 8, Brazil with 5, Canada with 4, and Argentina, Germany, the United Kingdom and Nigeria with 3 each. Thirty reports were filed in the last 30 days. On team size, 46% of reporting members say they work alone, 39% have teams of 2–9, 11% have teams of 10–49, and 4% have teams of 50–249. These are the people expected to navigate procedures while also keeping a business running.
There is useful outside context, too. The World Bank’s B-READY 2025 report covered 101 economies and found an average of about 60% on its “business ready” measure. Its public-services scores were about 23% below its regulatory-framework scores.1 That difference is a reminder that a rule can look clear on paper while the service needed to comply with it remains difficult to use.
A member’s experience, carefully told
The reports point to a shared challenge: permit applicants need clear information about when a decision will come and what happens if a deadline passes without one.
Imagine an owner working alone who has submitted a permit application and cannot find a reliable answer to two practical questions: when the decision will come, and what happens if the deadline passes without one. Each day without an answer makes planning harder. The owner may need to keep time available for follow-up, postpone a next step, or leave money committed while the application remains unresolved. None of those burdens requires a dramatic headline. Repeated across many small firms, they become a real cost of doing business.
Members should remain in control of what they share, while we ask whether the reports together show a consistent pattern. That distinction is central to trust in this council.
What we are learning
First, “permit delay” is not one problem with one cause. Reports can point to uncertainty about service times, difficulty finding the right process, or the absence of a clear next step. We need to distinguish those issues rather than flatten them into a slogan.
Second, the scale of the immediate task is manageable. Fifty-four reports are enough to make a serious inquiry, but not a reason to skip the five-part pattern test: Volume, Frequency, Consistency, Spread and Corroboration. We must ask how often the experience occurs, whether accounts describe comparable problems, how widely the pattern reaches, and whether the evidence supports it. The fact that all 54 reports concern permits is a strong focus for the inquiry; it does not, by itself, establish that every proposed remedy is justified.
Third, a useful standard must be practical for both the person applying and the public office administering the process. A one-stop digital process, published service times and a small-business impact test may help address parts of the problem. A “silence is consent” deadline raises important questions too: which permits could safely use it, what safeguards are needed, and how should applicants be treated when an agency needs more time? We should test those questions in public, not assume them away.
What comes next
We will keep gathering and checking evidence against all five parts of the pattern test. If you have a permit experience to report, describe what happened, when it happened, what the process required, and what was at stake. Please do not include identifying details unless you want them considered for publication.
On 5 May, the Assembly’s pledge program is scheduled to open. It is a separate Assembly-wide effort, but it offers a useful opportunity to keep small-business commitments visible while our council continues its evidence work.
The Assembly calendar lists 12 May as the next milestone for the Platform Council’s PL-001 review, followed by a draft Platform Fairness Standard on 26 May. Those are not Red Tape Council decisions. I mention them because they show the stages we must also respect: evidence, review, drafting, consultation and a decision through the Assembly.
For our council, the next step is to determine whether the permit evidence meets the pattern threshold and, if it does, to develop a draft that members and the public can examine. We will not announce a consultation date before the work is ready.
Thank you to everyone who has filed a report, helped another member describe a difficult process, or taken time to read the evidence with care. I also want to thank Ana in São Paulo, Asha in Mumbai, and Daniel in Toronto, along with members reporting from the other cities and countries represented in this council.
This council exists to make small-business experience legible without making members bear the cost of speaking. Please keep sending evidence, and please keep challenging our conclusions when the record does not support them. That is how we make a standard worth adopting.
With thanks,
Edna AssunçãoChair, Red Tape CouncilSão Paulo, Brazil