Regulation as an opportunity for learning and small business development: The case of Environmental Health inspections and good learning behaviours

The impact of regulation on small business has been subject to much debate and contestation by industry, government, and academics. Small businesses pose particular challenges in meeting legislative obligations, often due to lack of awareness and misinterpretations. The role of Environmental Health inspectors has historically been focussed on assessing compliance to protect public health. This research investigates the role of inspectors as educators, adding a new dimension to existing knowledge and theory bringing together the literature about regulatory compliance and learning and explores the interactions between actors to determine the outcomes of this interface and the potential for learning.

A focus group of inspectors identified a set of good learning behaviours (GLB’s) which were used in this qualitative study of 6 case studies each made up of an inspector and a small business operator. Observations of visits were carried out to identify evidence of GLB’s, followed by semi-structured interviews with both parties to identify evidence of learning, responses between individuals and exploration of the supportive and prohibitive factors for learning.

The key finding is that learning often does take place during regulatory interactions, this can be a two-way process, and certain conditions are particularly supportive of learning. Timing of the visit and the first introductory phase are critical, and two-way dialogue which includes a number of factors, is key to effective learning. These findings enabled the construction of a conceptual framework and development of a model that can be applied to Environmental Health regulatory activities to promote better learning outcomes in small businesses.

These findings are of significance to small business operators and Local Authority Environmental Health departments and their overarching bodies who have the ability to influence how regulatory interventions are carried out in the future. There is a particular gap in inspector training, with a need to focus more on understanding small businesses and how they operate, to better meet their needs.