The Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) says the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority’s (APRA) proposed evidence metrics require more quantifiable measures.

The regulator has produced the metrics in response to the Federal Government’s Regulator Performance Framework (RPF), which was established last October and is scheduled for implementation from July 1.

It includes six key performance indicators for assessing how regulators administer rules, and their impact on productivity ­– reducing the regulatory burden; communications; proportionality of approaches to risk-management measures; efficiency of compliance and monitoring approaches; transparency; and continuous improvement of regulatory frameworks.

Each year regulators will publish a performance report incorporating the key performance indicators, based on externally validated data.

ICA notes many of the evidence indicators proposed by APRA are processes it already has in place.

“Additional metrics to objectively measure and benchmark performance would provide a more rigorous method to test APRA’s performance against the RPF,” it says.

ICA acknowledges that identifying performance metrics for regulatory activities is “a difficult exercise”, but it is confident measuring APRA’s performance will help “genuinely lower the compliance burden on regulated entities”.

It wants APRA to demonstrate “measurable annual improvement” against set targets in each key performance indicator.

“Targets for improved performance need to be set at an appropriate level and regulators held accountable for meeting these targets,” ICA says.