EN    EN EN 
EN    EN  COMMISSION OF THE E UROPEAN COMMUNITIES 
Brussels, 28.1.2009 
SEC(2009) 55 
  
COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT 
 
Impact Assessment Board Report for 2008 
 
 
 
Accompanying the 
COMMUNICATION FROM THE CO MMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN 
PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL 
COMMITTEE AND THE COMMI TTEE OF THE REGIONS 
 
Third strategic review of Better Regulation 
in the European Union  
 
{COM(2009) 15 final} 
EN 2   EN 1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND KEY MESSAGES  
The Impact Assessment Board provides indepe ndent quality support and control for the 
impact assessments which are prepared by Commission services. The opinions which it 
produces on these impact assessments allow the College, legislators and stakeholders at large 
to form an impression of the quality of the analysis underpinning policy proposals.  
In 2008, the Board examined 135 draft impact assessments, compared to 102 in 2007. The 
number of impact assessments that the Boar d asked to examine for a second or third time 
increased even more: from 10 (or 10%) in 2007 to 43 (or 32 %)  in 2008. As a result, the 
Board issued a total of 182 opinions in the cour se of the year. In sp ite of the increase in 
numbers, the Board examined all impact assessments that were submitted to it. It did not need to prioritise the cases to be examined, as it announced might be the case in its report for 2007, 
although the Board's capacity was at times stretched to the maximum. 
When evaluating the quality of impact assess ments in 2007, the Board took into account the 
fact that this centralised quality control was a new element for Commission services, and that 
a certain time was necessary to allow them to get used to its procedures and requirements. In 2008, the Board has become more stringent in evaluating quality. The increase in the number 
of resubmissions cannot therefore be interprete d as a sign that the average quality of impact 
assessments has gone down. On the contrary, the Board observed improvements in the internal coherence of the impact assessments a nd the extent to which they comply with the 
structure and approach which is laid out in th e Guidelines. The high nu mber of resubmissions 
is nevertheless a clear indicat ion that further improvements in quality are needed.  
The main problems which the Board identified in the impact assessments of 2008 are broadly 
similar to those in 2007. In order of  decreasing importance these are: 
• an unclear explanation or incomplete an alysis of the problem to be addressed 
• an analysis of impacts whic h is either insufficiently detailed or is unbalanced 
• an incomplete or artificial se t of alternative policy options 
The Board's main conclusion is that two issu es in particular need more attention: 
First, greater efforts must be made to improve  the quality of impact assessments before they 
are sent to the Board. The Board received im pact assessments on several occasions which 
were clearly sub-standard. Comm ission services should make bett er use of the expertise of 
their impact assessment support units, and reinforce the role that they play  in quality control. 
The role of impact assessment steering groups s hould also be strengthene d to ensure that all 
relevant expertise within the Commission is expl oited in the process of drawing up the impact 
assessment.  
Second, better planning and respect of procedures is also an essential aspect of improving 
quality. Sufficient time should be allowed not only for the Board to examine the impact 
assessments, but in particular for services to follow-up on its recommendations. There have 
been too many cases when the procedures laid out in the Guidelines have not been followed, and the preparation of impact assessments and the examination by the Board have been 
'squeezed'. The Board welcomes the fact that the new impact assessment guidelines require 
services to submit their draft impact assessment to the Board earlier, and to take into account 
in their planning the possibility that the Board will request a resubmission. The impact 
assessment support units can also contribute to improving planning. 
EN 3   EN 2. CONTEXT , MANDATE , AND PROCEDURES OF THE BOARD   
Annex 1 provides a detailed overview of why the Board was established, how it is part of and 
contributes to the wider objectives of the Co mmission's impact assessment system, how the 
Board's quality control works in practice, and how the resources of the Board and its independent operation are arranged in practical terms. The main features of the Board are: 
• The five Members of the Board are appointed  by the President of the Commission for a 
two year term. They act in a personal capacit y, not as representatives of their services. 
They provide independent support and quality control for Commission impact assessments, 
supported by a secretariat provided by th e Secretariat-General of the Commission. 
• The results of the quality control are reflecte d in opinions of the Bo ard, which accompany 
the corresponding policy proposals throughout th e Commission's decision making process 
and are subsequently made publicly availa ble. Before issuing an opinion, the Board 
discusses its preliminary findings with the authors of the impact assessment. 
• For impact assessments which require substa ntial improvements, the Board may request a 
revised version to be submitted on which it issues an additional opinion ("resubmission"). 
Whereas the Board's functioning in 2008 was essentially  the same as in 2007, the following 
facts are specific for 2008: 
• In the course of the year, one Member had to leave the Board and was replaced. The other 
four Members were re-appointed  for another two year term. 
• In 2008, the Members of the Board declared a conflict of interest on 6 occasions and 
abstained from the discussions on these impact assessments.  
• Whereas in 2007 the Board occasionally recomm ended a “voluntary resubmission” as an 
alternative to a normal resubmission request , in 2008 this practice was rarely used. 
• In 2008 the Board on one occasion asked an external  expert to contribute to its work, for a 
case on fixed and mobile termination rates. 
3. O
UTPUT AND RESULTS OF THE BOARD   
3.1. Quality support and identification of init iatives in need of an Impact Assessment 
The Board provides quality support in three differe nt ways: a) at the beginning of the impact 
assessment work and at any time before the aut hor service submits the draft final report (this 
was done for an impact assessment by DG TAXUD1 on a tax proposal, for two impact 
assessments from DG ENV on climate issues, and for an impact assessment from DG SANCO on organ donation); b) in the run-up to a Board meeting through detailed suggestions 
for improvements in the quality checklists (thi s was done for almost all impact assessments 
that the Board examined); and c) as a follow- up to the discussion in a Board meeting where it 
offers further advice to the author service on how to address the concerns it has raised (this 
was done inter alia for an impact assessment by DG TREN on the interna lisation of external 
costs of transport and for an impact assessm ent from the same DG  on urban mobility). 
Furthermore, the Board Secretariat frequently gives advice directly to author services. 
                                                
 
1 Abbreviations of Commission di rectorates-general and services  are explained in Annex 2. 
EN 4   EN As part of its support at the be ginning of the impact assessmen t work, the Board has reviewed 
all the Roadmaps2 for initiatives which were included in the Commission's Legislative and 
Work Programme (CLWP) for 2009. These comments are intended to help services to correct 
at an early stage mistakes in the framing of  the impact assessments which would be more 
difficult to address later in the process when th e Board examines the draft impact assessment. 
This advice can cover for instance the identi fication of policy options  that are assessed. 
While impact assessments are generally required for initiatives which are part of the CLWP, 
for all other initiatives this is decided on a cas e-by-case basis. There ar e two relevant factors 
in this respect: the significance of the expected  impacts and the political sensitivity of the 
initiative. The Board was involved in this proc ess by the Secretariat-Ge neral which asked for 
its advice on certain cases which seemed to warra nt an impact assessment. At any stage, the 
Board may also decide to send 'prompt letters'  to services, recommending that an impact 
assessment be carried out on a planned proposal. 
As part of upstream support, bu t also to take stock of how the Board's work  is perceived in the 
Commission services, the Chair of the Boar d visited the management teams of the 4 
Commission services that produ ce the largest numbers of impact  assessments in early 2008. 
These meetings were a useful opportunity to discuss whether and how the Board's operation improves the attention to and qua lity of impact assessments, but also to discuss various 
constraints (e.g. timing, resources, political commitments, unquantifiable impacts) which 
services face when preparing their impact assessments. 
The Chair also attended a num ber of meetings of the High Level Group of Independent 
Stakeholders on Administrative Burdens. Th is Group examines draft measures aimed at 
reducing administrative burdens in  a number of existing pieces of legislation. Some of these 
measures are also subject to an impact assessment which is examined by the Impact Assessment Board, and the participation by the Chair has helped to ensure good contacts. 
3.2. Quality control 
In 2008 the Board examined and issued an opin ion on 135 impact assessments. It discussed 
101 (or 75%) of these with the aut hor service in the 26 meetings it held in the course of the 
year. The Board examined the remaining 34 imp act assessments in writt en procedure. This 
marks an increase both in the ov erall number of impact assessments the Board examined (up 
from 102 in 2007) and in the use of the oral pr ocedure (up from 56% in 2007). In spite of this 
increase, the Board was able to continue its practice of examining all impact assessments 
produced by the Commission, rather than examin ing only a selection of them as it announced 
might be necessary in its report for 2007. The Board's capacity was, however, at times 
stretched to the maximum. This was not so  much due to the total number of impact 
assessments that the Board had to examine, but  rather to the irregular 'flow' of impact 
assessments which resulted in a number of peak s. This flow is partly a function of the 
Commission's annual working rhythm, but it was exacerbated by the unstable planning of submission dates by many of the author services, which often lead to unexpected last-minute 
shifts. 
There was also an increase in the number of impact assessments resubmitted to the Board for 
a second or third examination following an earl ier critical opinion: whereas the resubmission 
rate was 10% (or 10 out of 102) in 2007, in 2008 this has gone up to 32% (or 43 out of 135; 4 
                                                
 
2 Roadmaps are drafted by the serv ices which will be responsible for preparing the impact assessment 
and policy proposal, and can be regarded as a sort  of "mini impact assessment": they set out the 
problem, objectives, policy options, an initial assessment of impacts and of subsidiarity, describe the 
state of preparation and the plans fo r further impact assessment work. 
EN 5   EN impact assessment were resubmitted twice). Th e total number of opinions issued in 2008 is 
therefore 182. 
Overall quality of impact assessments 
On average, the Board observed an improvement  in the internal coherence of the impact 
assessment and in the extent to which they comply with the structure and approach which is laid out in the Guidelines. This took place agai nst a backdrop of Commission services gaining 
more experience and investing more in bac kground analysis. As a result, the discussions 
between the Board and the author services have moved on from these structural issues to more 
advanced issues such as the level of detail that  is needed in the assessment of various impacts. 
It is not straightforward, however, to illustra te this general observation on the quality of 
impact assessments with objective indicators. One indicator would be the percentage of 
impact assessments which the Board requests to examine again. However, the rate of 
resubmissions is not only influen ced by the average quality of im pact assessments, but also by 
the stringency with which the Board applies th e agreed quality standards. The Board has 
become more stringent in applying these sta ndards, after having give n Commission services 
the opportunity during of 2007 to get used to its procedures and requireme nts. For that reason 
it is not possible to conclude from the increas ed number of resubmissions that the average 
quality of impact assessments has either gone  up or down. Nonetheless the high rate of 
resubmissions is a clear sign that more needs to be done to improve the quality of impact assessments. The following graph on resubmissi ons shows that some Commission services 
have in this respect more ground to cover than others. 
Number of impact assessments and
 number of resubmissions
0510152025
TREN
MARKT
ENV
ENTR
JLS
SANCO
EMPL
MARE
INFSO
EACRTD
TAXUD
AGRI
COMP
DEV
Number of IAs Resubmissions
 
Each opinion of the Board contains various recommendations for improvements. An analysis 
of these recommendations, and a comparison w ith the recommendations issued in 2007, is 
presented in the following graph3: 
                                                 
3 The appearance of this graph is different from table 2 in the Board's report for the year 2007 because of 
a refinement in the labels that are used to categoris e the opinions and due to the fact that the 2007 report 
did not analyse all opinions issued that year. In order to ensure comparability, the opinions issued in 
2007 have been re-analysed and are also presented in this table. 
EN 6   EN Issues raised in the opinions of the Board
0%20%40%60%80%100%
 Problem
definition,
baseline,
objectives
 Analysis of
impacts 
 Options and
their
comparison 
Subsidiarity,
value added and
proportionality 
Transposition
and
Implementation 
Stakeholder
consultation 
 Monitoring and
Evaluation 
 Proportionality
of analysis and
procedural
issues % of opinion
2007 2008 
Graphs 2 shows that the pattern of Board r ecommendations remained broadly unchanged: the 
analysis of impacts, the definition and de scription of problems and objectives, and the 
identification and description of policy options continue to be th e main issues in the opinions. 
There was an increase in the number of recomme ndations on the assessment of subsidiarity 
and proportionality, and on the assessment of tr ansposition and implementation issues. These 
are all fundamental aspects of policy making th at should be analysed appropriately in any 
impact assessment. 
The following graph shows a breakdown of the colu mn "analysis of impacts". This shows that 
most recommendations relate to economic impact s. This may however (partly) be due to the 
nature of the initiatives that were subject to  impact assessments and submitted to the Board. 
The need to quantify impacts wa s the second most frequently i ssued recommendation in this 
category, followed by the assessment or measurem ent of administrative burdens and of social 
impacts. 
EN 7   EN Breakdown of recommendations on the analysis of impacts
0%10%20%30%40%50%60%
 Economic
Impacts
 Quantification
 Admin costs
 Social Impacts
 Environmental
Impacts
 Impacts on
SMEs
 Impact on EU
budget
 Simplification
 Other impacts% of opinions
 
Transparency of the Board's work 
A key aspect of the Board's work is that its opinions are available to decision makers. This 
creates clear incentives for the author service to improve its impact assessment in line with the Board's recommendations. 
Within the Commission, Board opinions are publis hed on a website on the same day that they 
are transmitted to the Director-General of the author service. Once the impact assessments have been revised to reflect the Board's recomme ndations they are circulated together with the 
Board's opinion(s) on the earlier draft impact assessment(s) to other Commission services for 
the inter-service consultati on on the corresponding (possi bly adjusted) proposal and 
subsequent decision making by the College. 
Externally, all Board opinions are published af ter the Commission adopts the related policy 
proposal.
4 
3.3. Impact of the Board's opinions 
When the Chair of the Board sends the opinion to  the Director-General of the author service, 
he requests that a paragra ph summarising the changes made in response to the 
recommendations is included in the revised ve rsion of the impact assessment. Responsibility 
for monitoring the follow-up to the Board's r ecommendations lies with the Secretariat-
General and the other Commission services which participate in the inter-service consultation. (When the Board asks to see an impact assessment a second time, it follows-up on its original recommendations itself). However, fo r the purpose of this report a random
5 sample of 18 
impact assessments has been selected, and an analysis made of how well the Board's opinion 
was followed up. This leads to the following result. 
                                                 
4 http://ec.europa.eu/governanc e/impact/practice_en.htm . In exceptional cases and only on the grounds 
provided for in Regulation (EC) n° 1049/2001 re garding public access to documents, a service may 
request that an opinion should not be published on the external website, in which case the Board decides on the matter. In 2008 no  such requests were received. 
5 The random sample was made by selecting every 3rd impact assessment examined by the Board when 
listed in chronological order. The analysis for 2007 was based on a sample of 80 impact assessments. 
EN 8   EN Changes in IAs after Board opinion
0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%
Substantial Some Minor No changes
2007 2008 
In all cases the impact assessment was improve d, which confirms that the Board's opinions 
have an impact on the quality of impact assessments. 
Nevertheless, there were still many cases wh ere only some recommendations were followed 
up. The Board believes that this situation can and must be improved. The Board always 
provides an opportunity for the auth or service to indicate whethe r the concerns it has raised 
are relevant and whether it is  possible with reasonable effort to make the necessary 
improvements. It should therefore be possibl e to follow-up fully all the recommendations 
made. The main reason why this is not always the case appears to be poor planning and time 
constraints: services sometimes do not allow sufficient time for the Board's examination, or 
do not allow sufficient time to make the change s that the Board recommends. Time squeezes 
occur especially for cases where the Board re quests a resubmission, and where too often the 
services have not planned sufficient time to a llow them to wait for the second opinion before 
launching the inter-s ervice consultation. 
The impact of the time squeezes can be illust rated in two ways. In 2008 the Board had less 
than 3 weeks in which to complete its analysis  and issue its opinion in  16% of cases, whereas 
the normal time foreseen in its procedures is  4 weeks. For opinions on resubmitted impact 
assessments the situation was even more probl ematic: in 25% of cases the Board had to 
analyse the revised impact assessment and issu e its opinion in one week or less, whereas 
normally this takes 2-3 weeks. Although the Board is careful to ensure that the quality of its 
examination does not suffer from a time squeeze,  the effectiveness and value added of the 
impact assessment system as a whole is affect ed by this. This is also visible from the 
following graph, which shows that in just over ha lf of all cases the Board's opinion was part 
of the inter-service c onsultation (ISC) from the beginning; it should be available in all cases. 
EN 9   EN Av ailab ility of Board  op inions d uring the ISC
Not available
20%
Uploaded on 
time
56%Uploaded 
during the ISC
24%
 
The potential contribution of impact assessments and of the Board's opinions to the quality of 
EU policies is not limited to the preparation inside the Commission. The impact assessments 
and opinions are made publicly available to th e Council and the European Parliament, and can 
play a role in their decisions on policies. The Board has observ ed that over the past year the 
European Parliament and the Council have paid  increasing attention to  impact assessments, 
even though more progress could be made in maki ng this a standard and integral part of their 
work. Although this is not necessarily the objecti ve, the opinions of the Board are not as well-
known and are not referred to as frequently as the impact assessments to which they relate.  
Impact assessments as part of the working culture  
It is obvious from the majority of impact assessments examined by the Board that a 
significant amount of work was put into them. The author services  almost always prepare well 
their discussions with the Board, an d from the level of representati on it is clear that they take 
this work seriously. The Board believes that a key role in consolidating and further expanding 
this positive standing of impact assessmen t in the Commission lies with the impact 
assessment coordination units within the services. The Board welcomes the fact that several services (DGs EMPL, ENV, MARKT, INFSO, JL S) have increased the staffing of their 
impact assessment coordination units in the course of 2008, while DG EMPL has gone a step further by making its impact assessment support unit report directly to the director-general. 
The Board encourages all other services th at produce a significant number of impact 
assessments to follow this example. Reinforcing the position of these units will help to ensure 
that the draft impact assessments that are s ubmitted to the Board ar e already of good quality. 
It should also be noted that impact assessments are a means to an end – the aim is not just to 
improve the quality of impact assessments, but to ensure that these impact assessments help to 
improve the quality of the policy proposals. Assessing the extent to which this is the case is not straightforward. It is worth recalling, howe ver, that the external evaluation of the 
Commission's impact assessment system
6 in 2007 examined how impact assessments are 
carried out and used by the Commission services , whether they are of sufficient quality, and 
                                                 
6 The Evaluation Partnership: Evaluation of the Commission's impact Assessment System, April 2007; 
available at: http://ec.europa.eu/ governance/impact/key_en.htm. 
EN 10   EN what their role is in the policy or legisla tive process that follows once the Commission has 
adopted the related legislative proposal. It concluded that around two-thirds of Impact 
Assessments improved the quality of the propos als they accompanied as well playing an 
important role in increasing transparency. On th is basis it is reasonable to assume that the 
increased attention paid to impact asse ssments throughout 2007 and 2008 is continuing to 
improve the quality of proposals. However, as it is not known what the proposal would have 
looked like in the absence of impact assessments and scrutiny by the Board, there is no way to 
prove this hypothesis. 
4. LOOKING FORWARD  
4.1. Recommendations from the 2007 report 
In its report for 2007 the Board suggested seve ral changes and improvements, targeted at 
Commission services, at the Board's own work , and at the impact assessment system. A 
stocktaking of these recommendations  leads to the following overview: 
Recommendation Progress 
Strengthen IA units in services This has been done in a small number of services, but 
can be taken further. 
Submit IAs to the Board earlier than the minimum deadline  This happened in some cases, but too often the time for 
the Board's examination was squeezed 
Data availability and reliability should be addressed earlier New guidelines contain im proved guidance on how to 
collect and use data 
Impact Assessment Steering Groups should be involved earlier New guidelines urge author services to give these 
groups a bigger role. 
Prioritise the Board's work by examining a selection of IAs Prioritisation was not necessary: the Board was able to 
examine all IAs submitted to it 
Early identification by the Board of IAs that could benefit from external 
expertise This continues to be hard in practice, but has not 
affected negatively the Board's operation 
Improved guidance to services, incl. a study on assessing social impacts DG JLS and DG EMPL both launched studies on how 
to improve the assessment of social impacts 
Give more feedback to those services with poorest quality IAs The Chair visited the management teams of 4 services 
to discuss the quality of their IAs and the internal 
organisation of their IA work. 
Publish guidance and examples of good practice IAs New guidelines contain a list of examples which the 
Board considers good practice 
Reinforced guidance based on Roadmaps, explicit requirements for Roadmaps The Board gave guidance by issuing advice on the 
Roadmaps for 2009. The template for Roadmaps however remained unchanged. 
"Intermediate" discussions with services for key initiatives Intermediate discussions were held with services by the 
Board's secretariat 
EN 11   EN Remove blanket obligation to carry 
out IAs on all Work Programme initiatives New guidelines put the emphasis more clearly on 
impact assessments for legislative proposals. 
Ensure more concerted advice to author services on what constitutes a good IA Coordination between Board Secretariat and services in 
the Secretariat-General was improved to ensure that there are no parallel ch annels of communication. 
 
4.2. Priorities for the Board in 2009 
The Board will continue its work in 2009 on the same  basis as it has in the past 2 years. Based 
on its experience so far, the Board will give particular attention to the following issues which build on the recommendations in the report on 2007: 
On better planning 
• Impact assessments must be of  better quality before they ar e sent to the Board. The impact 
assessment support units in the services have a key role to play in ensuring this, as do the 
impact assessment steering groups. These shoul d both be involved at an earlier stage and 
more systematically throughout th e preparation process. In im portant cases, as has already 
happened a few times, there could be an "o rientation debate" with the Board before 
submitting formally a draft report. 
• The Board will step up its existing practice of returning impact assessments without 
issuing an opinion if they are clearly sub-sta ndard and not ready to be examined. This also 
applies to impact assessments which, without justification, exceed the recommended maximum length of 30 pages (excl. annexes). The Board is ready to provide upstream 
support in selected cases, but it does not want  to and cannot take over the role that the 
impact assessment support units and the im pact assessment steering groups should play. 
• Author services must plan better to avoi d time squeezes, both in the submission of 
documents to the Board and in the follow-up to the Board's opinions. Author services 
should allow sufficient time for the Board to  examine the impact assessments, and to 
incorporate the recommendations it makes. Th ey should always take into account the 
possibility that the Board may request a re submission. Also here, the impact assessment 
support units have a key role to play in advising the authors of impact assessments.
7 
On publicity and follow-up 
• Commission services should avoid launching in ter-service consultations before the Board 
has concluded its examination of the impact assessment. The Secretariat-General of the 
Commission should check more closely that th e impact assessment and the Board's opinion 
are part of the inter-service file. 
• Awareness and use of Board opinions outside  the Commission should be increased. The 
Board secretariat will ensure that impact assessments and the corresponding opinion(s) are 
added to the Europa website  immediately after adoption. 
                                                 
7 It should be noted that time squeezes are not always  the result of poor planning by DGs but are at times 
also dictated by political constraints, such as the ne ed to respond at short notice to requests from the 
Council and the European Parliament. 
EN 12   EN • There is a need to ensure that impact assessm ents fully cover the issues addressed in the 
corresponding policy proposal. Proposals are sometimes ch anged during the adoption 
process inside the Commission. The Secretar iat-General should deve lop a procedure to 
keep track of these changes and verify whethe r the analysis in the impact assessment still 
covers the proposal. If this is  not the case then the impact assessmen t should be updated 
whenever possible.8 
4.3. The new impact assessment guidelines 
The new guidelines which will come into force at the beginning of 2009 improve the guidance 
on several issues which were found to be insuffi ciently clear or difficu lt to apply, and address 
several of the recommendations that the Board made in its report for 2007 and in the present 
report for 2008. 
The opinions of the Board contributed to identi fying which parts of the guidelines needed to 
be strengthened. This is for instance the case for the assessment of subsidiarity, for making 
the principle of proportionate anal ysis operational in practice, a nd for the role of the impact 
assessment steering groups and of public consu ltations in preparing impact assessments. A 
key innovation which is especially welcomed by the Board and which it recommended in its report on 2007 is to make the guidance more operational by publishing a list of concrete examples of good impact assessment practice. Th is list was largely dr awn up by analysing the 
section in the opinions of the Board that is  dedicated to highlighting positive aspects. 
Another important improvement which is directly relevant for the work of the Board is that 
the deadline for submitting impact assessments to the Board will be changed from 4 weeks before the launch of inter-service consultation to  4 weeks before the envisaged meeting with 
the Board. This effectively extends the time avai lable for the Board's examination. It will help 
to avoid situations where the author services plan the launch of inter-service consultation too 
quickly after the meeting with  the Board, do not allow themselves enough time to make the 
necessary changes, and do not factor in th e possibility that the Board may request a 
resubmission. 
                                                
 
8 A similar situation occurs when legislative proposals  are amended in the European Parliament or in the 
Council in ways that are not covered in the impact  assessment. This situation is however outside the 
scope of the Commission (and the IAB) and is the subject of the Inter-Institutional Agreement on Better 
Lawmaking (2003) and the Common Appro ach on Impact Assessments (2005). 
EN 13   EN Annex 1: Context, Mandate, and Procedures of the Board 
The President of the Commission cr eated the Board on 14 November 2006.9 In doing so, he 
delivered on the commitment he made to the Eu ropean Parliament in the plenary session of 
April 2006 to establish a body under his personal  authority that woul d provide independent 
quality support and control for Commission impact assessments. The President appoints the Members of the Board, ad personam,  from the Commission services with the most direct 
expertise in the three dimensions  (economic, social and environm ental) of integrated impact 
assessment
10. The Board is chaired by the Deputy S ecretary-General responsible for Better 
Regulation. An alternate is appointed for each Me mber to replace him/her in case of absence. 
The Board complements the Commission's existing impact assessment system which aims at 
ensuring impact assessments of high quality through:  
• a decentralised approach whereby each Director ate-General is responsible for preparing its 
own impact assessments in line with the impact assessment guidelines, 
• early cooperation and consultation, both within the Commission through an impact 
assessment steering group, and with stak eholders outside the Commission;  
• a balanced approach requiring assessment of economic, social, and environmental impacts, 
involving internal and external e xpertise, where appropriate; and  
• an approach integrated in the Commission’ s Strategic Planning and Programming cycle. 
The mandate of the Board does not foresee an y formal role in th e Commission’s decision-
making process beyond the delivery of opini ons on the quality of individual impact 
assessments. The Board is not responsible for th e quality of the final impact assessment, nor 
can it block a proposal from being submitted to political examination because the impact assessment is of insufficient quality. The Commission is, however, fully informed about 
Board opinions. The fact that the Board's opini ons are formally part of Commission decision-
making procedures and are published, provides an incentive for services to make the 
improvements to the impact assessments that the Board recommends. 
How the Board's quality control works 
The Board examines each impact assessment be fore the author service launches the inter-
service consultation on the relate d policy proposal. This examination generally takes place in 
a timeframe of 4 weeks and follows a number of standardised steps. Approximately two 
weeks after it receives an imp act assessment, the Board sends the author service a "quality 
checklist" of 3-5 pages.
11 This contains a detailed analysis  of the impact assessment on all key 
elements which are required in the guidelines. On the basis of the preliminary findings in the quality checklist, the Chair decides whether to c ontinue the examination in oral or in written 
procedure. In oral procedure th e author service discusses the qua lity checklist with the Board 
during one of its meetings. These meetings ar e held every other week, and 50 minutes is 
                                                
 
9 Cf. Information note from the President to the Commission: "Enhancing quality support and control for 
Commission Impact Assessments - The Impact Asse ssment Board" - SEC(2006) 1457. See also: 
http://ec.europa.eu/governance/impact/iab_en.htm. 
10 The composition of the Board changed on 1 May 2008: Jan Host Schmidt (DG ECFIN) left the Board, 
John Farnell (DG ENTR) joined th e Board, and Gert-Jan Koopman, previously the Member from DG 
ENTR, was appointed as the Member of DG ECFIN. In November 2008, Timo Mäkelä (DG ENV) and 
Xavier Prats Monne (DG EMPL) were reappointed as Members for a second term of two years. Alexander Italianer (SG) stay ed on as statutory Chair. 
11 Annex 2 to the Impact Assessment Board Report for the year 2007 contains a model quality checklist. 
SEC(2008) 120 of 30.01.2008 
EN 14   EN usually reserved for each impact assessment. In  written procedure there is no meeting, and the 
author service responds to the quality checklist in writing.  
The Board produces its opinion on the basis of the comments and clarifications which the 
author service provides  in response to the quality checkli st. The opinion focuses on the 3-5 
key issues which have been raised in the quali ty checklist or during th e meeting, and lists the 
recommendations for improvements in the order of  their importance. In some cases, the Board 
may conclude that the draft impact assessment needs such substantial improvements that the 
author service should submit a revised version.  The Board issues a second opinion on this 
revised text.12 These resubmissions are generally deal t with in written procedure, and the 
Board examines whether the service has incorp orated satisfactorily the recommendations in 
the first opinion. In rare cases the Bo ard may request a second resubmission. 
Independence of the Board 
The President appoints the Members of the Boar d and their alternates in a personal capacity. 
They do not represent the views of their home services on the impact assessments they examine, and their services cannot give them inst ructions on the pos ition to take. Their role is 
to provide expertise on the quality of the impact assessments independently of the Commission service preparing th e proposal. Members must inform the Chair of any interest 
which might affect their independence in relation  to an impact assessment and if appropriate 
transfer his/her vote to the alternate.
13  
The Board interprets this rule as applying in principle to impact assessments which have been 
carried out or supported by the services under th e direct responsibility of a Board Member. A 
conflict of interest is therefore not automatically presumed to be present if the impact assessment has been prepared by a different dire ctorate in the Member’s Directorate-General. 
In 2008, Board Members declared a conflict of interest in 6 cases and abstained from the 
discussions on these impact assessments. An analysis of the cases where the Board requested a resubmission shows that the Board applies sim ilar standards to impact assessments that are 
produced by the services of the Board Members to those produced by all Commission 
services: the resubmission rate is 33% and 32 % respectively. The Board also interprets 
independence in the sense that it does not di scuss individual impact assessments or its 
opinions with external stakeh olders, with the exception of experts who are invited by the 
Board to provide advice in confidentiality. 
Resources of the Board 
The Board is supported in its work by a secret ariat which is provid ed by the Secretariat-
General of the Commission. Members also rece ive support from their alternates and from 
staff within their own services. In total, the equivalent of an estimated 15 full-time posts 
support the Members and assure the daily opera tion of the Board. The Secretariat-General 
provides the Board with financia l resources to fund external experts to contribute to its 
opinions and studies to be commissi oned in its quality support function. 
                                                
 
12 In 2007 the Board occasionally recommended a “voluntary resubmissi on”, but in 2008 this practice was 
rarely used in order to avoid ambiguity about whether or not a resubmission was needed. 
13 Cf. Rules of Procedure of the Im pact Assessment Board, Art. 3(2); available at: http://ec.europa.eu/ 
governance/ impact/iab_en.htm. 
EN 15   EN The Chair can ask any Commission service to provide expertise on specific issues as input to 
the Board's examination of an impact assessment . He may also call on external expertise if 
internal expertise is not readily available, or for any other re ason. This is difficu lt in practice: 
the short lead-time between submission of the imp act assessment and discussion of the file in 
a Board meeting means that experts have to be  found at short notice; and there is always a 
need to ensure that they are independent and not involved in some way with the issue, for 
example through advising stakeholders. Nonethel ess, in 2008 the Board asked an external 
expert to contribute to its work on one occasi on, when it examined a case on fixed and mobile 
termination rates. The Board referred to the expert's contribution in its opinion. 
EN 16   EN 1.  Annex 2: Commission directorates-general and services: official titles and 
abbreviations 
Full name Letter code 
Secretariat-General SG 
Directorate-General for Communication COMM 
Directorate-General for Economic  and Financial Affairs ECFIN 
Directorate-General for Ente rprise and Industry ENTR 
Directorate-General for Competition COMP 
Directorate-General for Employme nt, Social Affairs and Equal 
Opportunities EMPL 
Directorate-General for Agricult ure and Rural Development AGRI 
Directorate-General for Energy and Transport TREN 
Directorate-General for the Environment ENV 
Directorate-General for Research RTD 
Directorate-General for the Information Society and Media INFSO 
Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries MARE 
Directorate-General for the Intern al Market and Services MARKT 
Directorate-General for Taxa tion and Customs Union TAXUD 
Directorate-General for Education and Culture EAC 
Directorate-General for Health and Consumers SANCO 
Directorate-General for Justic e, Freedom and Security JLS 
Directorate-General for Trade TRADE 
Directorate-General for Development DEV