On Ofcom's own website it states that "it shall be the principle duty of Ofcom, in carrying out their functions":-

"(a) to further the interests of citizens in relation to Communications Matters"

"(b) to further the interests of consumers in relevant markets, where appropriate by promoting competition"

Ofcom also states as a regulatory principle that:-

"Ofcom will intervene where there is a specific statutory duty to work towards a public policy goal which markets alone cannot achieve"

I have just sent an email to Matt Peacock, Communications Director of Ofcom asking him to account for Ofcom's mysterious failure to successfully adhere to these principles in respect of its regulation of 084/7 numbers.

I thought some of you might be interested in this email:-

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Sent: 09 September 2005 13:17
To: Matt Peacock
Cc: stephen.carter@ofcom.org.uk; kip.meek@ofcom.org.uk;colette.bowe@ofcomconsumerpanel.org.uk; bob.twitchin@ofcomconsumerpanel.org.uk
Subject: Ofcom's Failure to Pursue its Statutory Duties & Regulatory Principles

Matt,

If one examines Ofcom's statutory duties and regulatory principles listed at http://www.ofcom.org.uk/about/sdrp/ it is surely little wonder that I am very concerned when all of Ofcom's alleged primary duties are allegedly focused on protecting citizens and consumers, although bizarrely telecoms are not even specifically mentioned in its 6 primary duties, whereas broadcasting is.

Yet in practice Ofcom's own staff and boards and Advisory Committees seem to be stacked from stem to stern mainly with professionals from the telecoms and broadcasting industries, who while possibly having a vague personal interest in what a consumer wants also have an inherent conflict of interest in also being far too sympathetic to the business interests of the telecoms companies that many of them either currently work for (the non exec Ofcom Board directors and Advisory Committee members) or may soon return to (the Ofcom employees).  There should of course be some communication industry professional expertise at Ofcom but there should also be plenty of those with recent backgrounds as tough regulators used to dealing with ruthless commercial companies with excessive market dominance and/or that are used to behaving in a cartel like manner.

The 087/4 issue has been a critical test and to my mind Ofcom has failed on this quite convincingly.  Just the amount of time you have taken to investigate what is actually a pretty straightforward business issue (what exactly have Geoff Brighton and co been doing for 9 months and who allowed them to have 9 months instead of only 3 months) and Ofcom's reluctance to regulate or seek the necessary parliamentary powers to regulate in this area speaks volumes.  And all this nonsense in the original NTS consultation document about needing more granularity and thinking that Option 2 was best clearly showed that Ofcom actually doesn't seem to employ almost anyone producing its consultation documents who puts the interest of citizens and consumers first.  The fact that your Chief Executive is from NTL seems to mean that he also condones the longstanding anticompetitive business practices of BT, NTL and Cable & Wireless as apparently being quite normal. He also appears to have long since forgotten Ofcom's primary goal when addressing such issues.

There is also a huge inherent tension in your regulatory principles between:-

"Ofcom will intervene where there is a specific statutory duty to work towards a public policy goal which markets alone cannot achieve" (eg the 087/4 NTS issue)

and

"Ofcom will always seek the least intrusive regulatory mechanisms to achieve its policy objectives."

In practice the latter objective seems to mean that Ofcom procrastinates endlessly in the hope that something will turn up to stop it having to regulate and in the process Ofcom then seems to forget all about its primary duty to the citizen and the consumer and instead seems to worry much more about not affecting the smooth operation of business and existing business contractual arrangements.

I think I need to pursue this further with my MP since clearly parliament is the only body that can force Ofcom to refocus successfully on its primary duties.  Also quite clearly Ofcom is failing in its duty to work in the best interests of citizens and consumers and somewhere along the line has replaced that with "some minimal token regulation here and there but in fact intruding on the day to day business operation of large communications companies as little as possible"

There are of course those who believe only in the free market (like my brother in law) but I personally can't actually see the point in setting up a large and expensive regulator if it isn't actually effective in carrying out the duties that were set for it by parliament.

Regards,