No Postcomm Consumer Panel
In Spring 2006, the then Department of Trade & Industry (DTI) held a consultation on future forms of consumer representation. This suggested a number of possible models for bringing together the working of the National Consumer Council, Postwatch, Energywatch, the Ofcom Consumer Panel and the Financial Services Authority Consumer Panel. At that time, Sarah Chambers, Chief Executive of the postal regulator Postcomm, sent a submission to DTI which stated: "A well resourced Consumer Panel can provide effective, evidence-based advice and information to a regulator. If Postwatch is abolished, then Postcomm would support the establishment of a Postal Services Panel."
Now that Parliament has approved the Consumers, Estate Agents And Redress Act - which will merge Postwatch with Energywatch and the NCC - we sought clarification from Postcomm as to whether it was in fact their intention to create a Consumer Panel. Sarah Chambers writes:
"You asked about Postcomm’s position on the various ideas that have been put forward about Consumer Panels. The response we sent in April 2006 to the Government’s consultation was, as we stated at the time, based on the fact that DTI had told us that its preferred option was to have specialist panels established by sectoral regulators (ie Option 3 in the consultation document); our comments were therefore made in that context. Our response pointed out that any Panel would have to be able to identify and get access to sufficient sources of information about postal issues in order to be effective. We also pointed out that the implications for additional funding for Postcomm’s enhanced role both in terms of assessing and approving an Ombudsman scheme and establishing and servicing a Panel did not appear to have been addressed.
The Government’s decision recognised “the significantly different role” that the Financial Services Consumer Panel and the Ofcom Consumer Panel play in their respective regulatory frameworks and decided that they would be left unchanged. Although the decision left it open for other regulators to establish their own consumer panels if they wished to, no additional funding has been provided for Postcomm to do this and no evidence has been provided that such a Panel is necessary. The requirement to assess Ombudsman schemes is a statutory one and Postcomm has therefore had to reallocate resources to deal with this additional area of regulation.
The government has decided that the nature of consumer representation in post is to change. Postcomm looks forward to working closely on postal issues with the new consumer body. We will seek to ensure that they are brought up to speed on postal issues and have an active input into our policy development."
Now that Parliament has approved the Consumers, Estate Agents And Redress Act - which will merge Postwatch with Energywatch and the NCC - we sought clarification from Postcomm as to whether it was in fact their intention to create a Consumer Panel. Sarah Chambers writes:
"You asked about Postcomm’s position on the various ideas that have been put forward about Consumer Panels. The response we sent in April 2006 to the Government’s consultation was, as we stated at the time, based on the fact that DTI had told us that its preferred option was to have specialist panels established by sectoral regulators (ie Option 3 in the consultation document); our comments were therefore made in that context. Our response pointed out that any Panel would have to be able to identify and get access to sufficient sources of information about postal issues in order to be effective. We also pointed out that the implications for additional funding for Postcomm’s enhanced role both in terms of assessing and approving an Ombudsman scheme and establishing and servicing a Panel did not appear to have been addressed.
The Government’s decision recognised “the significantly different role” that the Financial Services Consumer Panel and the Ofcom Consumer Panel play in their respective regulatory frameworks and decided that they would be left unchanged. Although the decision left it open for other regulators to establish their own consumer panels if they wished to, no additional funding has been provided for Postcomm to do this and no evidence has been provided that such a Panel is necessary. The requirement to assess Ombudsman schemes is a statutory one and Postcomm has therefore had to reallocate resources to deal with this additional area of regulation.
The government has decided that the nature of consumer representation in post is to change. Postcomm looks forward to working closely on postal issues with the new consumer body. We will seek to ensure that they are brought up to speed on postal issues and have an active input into our policy development."
Labels: Postcomm
posted by Postwatch at 5:31 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home