Regulatory Compliance Scale (RCS) Revisited

The Regulatory Compliance Scale (RCS) was originally posted on this RIKINotes Blog in January of 2022 and has received many visits, reads and downloads since that time. It is one of the most popular posts on the blog, especially with researchers from the Philippines.

It is being revisited because now that it has time to be tested and retested in more recent studies its usefulness is readily apparent. Before it being proposed in 2022, there were basically two ways to document regulatory compliance historical data either by counting up the number of violations or by stating that the provide of service was either in or out of compliance. The first approach was very discrete and basically a frequency count while the second was an all or none determination. The problem with both was that they did not work very well. Either approach did not really discriminate well amongst the differences in programs. That is the reason for proposing the Regulatory Compliance Scale (RCS).

The Regulatory Compliance Scale (RCS) is based upon a sound theoretical framework that is consistent in how licensing decisions and groupings are done in regulatory administration. Programs are in full regulatory compliance (0 violations), substantial regulatory compliance (1-3 violations), mediocre regulatory compliance (4-9 violations), or very low regulatory compliance (10+ violations). None of the violations are either risk rules or key indicator rules. This scaling fits with regulatory science and licensing research and theory. The other thing about the RCS is that it works really well in utilizing this scale instead of the all or none determination, or the frequency count approach as highlighted above. The latest study conducted in the Province of Saskatchewan clearly demonstrated its superiority over the other two approaches.

The hope is for the RCS to be further tested by regulatory scientists and licensing researchers in the human services and in other industries as well to determine if its scaling holds up in other venues. It is recommended that jurisdictions should attempt the three approaches as outlined above and see which is the most effective and efficient.