The Insights Association made the assertion in response to a Request for Information (RFI) on deregulation issued by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

“The current federal approach to survey, opinion and market research, unchanged since 2006, wastes taxpayer resources and hurts the private sector,” the Insights Association said in written comments filed to the OMB on 12th May.

The OMB issued the RFI to seek proposals to “rescind or replace regulations that stifle American businesses and American ingenuity”, according to a notice it posted on 11th April.

It also asked the OMB to stop “demands for arbitrarily high response rates”, saying that these “waste resources and harass research subjects”.

In further requests, the Insights Association asked the OMB to increase competition in the marketplace for the provision of research services to the federal government, and to recognise ISO standards as a mark of quality in research.

The trade body continued: “Federal statistical policy’s approach to survey, opinion and market research is onerous, archaic and antiquated. The policy has not been updated in nearly 20 years (since 2006 ), while the real world in which research must operate, not to mention how rigorous research is conducted in the private sector, has changed dramatically.”

Noting that the existing policy emerged from the 1995 Paperwork Reduction Act, the Insights Association added: “Obsolete red tape is choking innovation in federal research.”

The RFI is part of a deregulation drive under the Trump administration. On 31^st January, an executive order from the president directed federal agencies to identify at least 10 existing ‘rules, regulations, or guidance documents’ to repeal for each new regulation it seeks to promulgate.