Guidance
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Guidance is the term for supplemental information produced by an agency to detail procedures for implementing a regulation. All regulations set policy and many of the details necessary for their implementation. However, they often do not provide all of the needed details. For example, they may not describe how an agency should coordinate the implementation of the new regulation with existing regulations, or who in the local or regional offices should approve exemption decisions.
As such questions arise, agencies often produce internal manuals or guidelines to advise staff in national, regional, state, and local office on how exactly to implement the regulations. The publications may not only be quite lengthy, but also are changed frequently to reflect regulatory revisions or new internal procedures. Guidance does not have the force of law, as does a regulation.
