Our comprehensive regulatory project is aimed at restructuring regulations laid down pursuant to the Ship Safety and Security Act. The work reached a milestone when the proposed new regulations on certificates and surveys for ships and mobile offshore units were signed and circulated for comments. This was the last in a series of regulations in Phase 1 of the project, which includes all international requirements of SOLAS, MARPOL and other international conventions.
– This marks the completion of the first phase of the project, says Linda Bruås, Head of Section for Legislation and Contracts. – We aim to implement the regulations this autumn, she says.
For the shipping industry, this means that it will now be easier to navigate the rules that regulate maritime operations in Norway.
USER-FRIENDLY
Many of the NMA’s regulations implement international requirements, which are subject to frequent changes. It was sometimes difficult to find where the international requirements were implemented, and there were often several regulations on the same subject but for different vessel types.
– Feedback from the industry revealed that our regulations were perceived as complex and fragmented, says Bruås. – We were determined to address this issue, seeing as part of the NMA’s present strategy is a user-friendly and easily accessible regulatory framework.
– The regulations administered by the NMA shall be designed in such a way that they are easy for our clients to use and easy for us to maintain, especially with regard to the implementation of international obligations, she says.
LONG PROCESS
The idea has been to review the regulations that implement international conventions and, as far as possible, to comply with the structure of the international conventions.
To revise regulations in this way is not done in a jiffy. Firstly, it requires analysis of the international instruments and the way they are implemented and practised in Norwegian law. Based on this, a proposal is circulated for comments outside of the organisation, before finally being adopted.
In Phase Two of the regulatory project, the NMA will be reviewing the remainder of the regulatory framework.
MILESTONE: - This is a huge step forward, says Linda Bruås, Head of Section for Legislation and Contracts. The first part of the regulatory project was completed last week when Head of Department, Lars Alvestad (right) and Bjørn Pedersen signed the request for comments to the new regulations on certificates and surveys for ships and mobile offshore units.