The Red Tape Reduction Tracker measures the regulatory and administrative barriers that slow South African businesses down and follows the progress government is making to remove them. Evidence from national, provincial and local government, brought together in one place.
The National Development Plan positions regulatory reform and the reduction of red tape as important levers for creating a more conducive regulatory environment, enabling businesses to grow, supporting investment attraction and contributing to job creation.
The Red Tape Reduction Tracker tracks and measures progress in reducing regulatory and administrative bottlenecks and government operational inefficiencies that affect businesses across South Africa.
The platform brings together evidence from red tape reduction interventions across national, provincial and local government, with potential to expand to government entities and the private sector.
The evidence gathered through the platform supports assessment of whether regulatory and administrative reform interventions are achieving their intended outcomes and contributing towards a more enabling environment for SMMEs and the broader South African economy.
Red tape refers to complex regulatory and administrative barriers that can hinder economic development, small business growth and efficient government service delivery.
Excessive regulations, documentation requirements and compliance obligations.
Unnecessary process steps, duplication and bureaucratic hurdles.
Processes that take longer than expected and can affect businesses, investment and service delivery.
Every intervention tracked on the platform falls under one of three themes.
Reviewing, changing, updating or simplifying legislation, regulations, by-laws and policies affecting businesses.
Reducing unnecessary process steps, documentation, duplication and application turnaround times while modernising and digitising government services.
Building institutional capacity, supporting officials and encouraging new ways of working around regulations and business-facing services.
These indicators can be tracked over time and across national, provincial and local levels. Figures are published through the project dashboards as data becomes available.
Adoption of red tape reduction strategies across spheres of government.
Process performance for business licensing and permitting applications.
Steps, requirements and turnaround times involved in registering a business.
Payment timeframes affecting businesses that supply government.
How raw information from red tape reduction projects becomes evidence that supports decisions.
Structured inputs collected from projects across government.
Consistent definitions applied across indicators and levels.
Bottlenecks, trends and process performance are examined.
Findings are consolidated into a defensible evidence base.
Evidence informs where reform effort is most needed.
Interventions and indicators are tracked across three spheres of government, allowing comparison between national, provincial and local levels.
Stylised representation. Boundaries are illustrative only.
National departments and reform programmes setting the direction for red tape reduction.
Provincial interventions and regulatory reform affecting businesses regionally.
Municipal processes, by-laws and service delivery that businesses interact with daily.
Measuring red tape is the first step towards reducing it.
Make regulatory and administrative bottlenecks easier to identify.
Track progress against agreed indicators.
Understand whether interventions are achieving their intended outcomes.
Support decision-makers in identifying areas where processes can be improved.
Common questions about the Red Tape Reduction Tracker, the data behind it and how the platform is used.
Red tape refers to complex regulatory and administrative barriers that slow businesses down. It includes excessive documentation and compliance requirements, duplicated or unnecessary process steps, and processes that take longer than they reasonably should, all of which can hinder economic development, small business growth and efficient government service delivery.
The Red Tape Reduction Tracker is a platform that measures the regulatory and administrative barriers affecting South African businesses and follows the progress government is making to remove them. It brings evidence from national, provincial and local government together in one place so that reform efforts can be monitored over time.
The platform is intended for anyone with an interest in how regulation affects business in South Africa, including policymakers and officials across the three spheres of government, SMMEs and business owners, researchers and analysts, and stakeholders tracking progress on regulatory reform.
Interventions and indicators are tracked across three spheres: national (departments and reform programmes setting direction), provincial (interventions and regulatory reform affecting businesses regionally) and local (municipal processes, by-laws and service delivery that businesses interact with daily). The platform is designed with potential to expand to government entities and the private sector.
A project is a specific red tape reduction intervention a piece of work undertaken to remove or simplify a barrier. An indicator is a measure that can be tracked over time and compared across spheres of government, such as business licence and permit turnaround times or payment timeframes. Projects generate the evidence that indicators summarise.
Explore the data, understand the bottlenecks and follow progress towards a more enabling environment for businesses and communities across South Africa.
