For years, it seems, shipping people have been complaining about the amount of bureaucracy which burdens those both afloat and ashore as they seek to satisfy regulators and their rules of every kind. “Red tape”, it is suggested, has become both a barrier to progress and a ligature around the neck of enterprise. Whether it is the mind-numbing nonsense of having to report everything about a ship (including dimensions which never change) to every arrival port in a different format, to the refusal of authorities to accept electronic versions of documents, red tape drives people mad with frustration.

So when the International Maritime Organization (IMO) announced in 2012 that it was to form an ad hoc Steering Group for Reducing Administrative Requirements to examine the administrative burdens associated with mandatory IMO conventions and codes, the industry gave it a cautious welcome. This week the group reports back to IMO and it would appear that there are some very positive findings, for which BIMCO has announced its support.

It is good news, for instance, that the report calls for electronic certificates to have equal weight with their paper originals. When we have all this technology at our fingertips it seems a shame not to use it, struggling with great wads of paper originals that everyone is worried about losing. It recommends that an electronic “single window” information exchange system is introduced to fulfil multiple reporting requirements. Copiers might have replaced the carbon copies which were the bane of shipboard bureaucracy, but if we have these 21st century electronic facilities available, surely they can be used to advantage.

It is an important recommendation that owners, administrations, classification societies and commercial parties – indeed everyone concerned with maritime business – should accept electronic or software solutions, rather than exchanging paper. Fewer trees will be cut down.

There are plenty of other sensible results, although one important matter looks to the future when it recommends that before new or existing IMO regulations are devised or amended, there should be an effort to identify and reduce any administrative burdens that they might require. It is a sensible, practical process that should accompany all rule-making in the future.

BIMCO, says Deputy Secretary General Lars Robert Pedersen, “urges the IMO Council to make firm decisions on the basis of the recommendations and remove unnecessary administrative burdens”. It would surely be a very sensible, and popular development.

And if IMO can show how it is able to disentangle itself from its own red tape, this will surely prove a useful example to all the other bureaucracies – regional, national and local in character – which like to surround themselves with tape of their own making. The proof, of course, will be whether the recommendations, hopefully approved this week, will be translated into speedy practical improvement, which will see daily work on ships and ashore made less burdensome.