A Toolkit for Europe?
05 March 2009
Last week Roger Darlington wrote on the Blog about the Consumer Focus report Rating Regulators. This praised Ofcom for the way it has made consumers' interests central to its decision-making. The report also recognised the role of the Consumer Interest Toolkit (developed by the Panel) in encouraging Ofcom in this direction.
There is now interest around Europe in the Toolkit and way that the Panel advises Ofcom and others on the interests of consumers and citizens in the communications sector. This has been prompted partly by a planned change to the EU regulatory framework.
The revised Universal Services Directive, which is expected to be finalised by the end of this year, requires that:
"Member States shall ensure that national regulatory authorities establish a consultation mechanism ensuring that in their decision-making process due consideration is given to consumer interests in electronic communications." (Amendment 20, page 31)
The preamble to the Directive explains the thinking behind this:
"In order to overcome existing shortcomings in terms of consumer consultation and appropriately address the interests of citizens, Member States should put in place an appropriate consultation mechanism. Such a mechanism could take the form of a body which would, independently from the national regulatory authority as well as from service providers, carry out research on consumer-related issues, such as consumer behaviour and mechanisms for changing suppliers, and which would operate in a transparent manner and contribute to the existing mechanisms for stakeholders' consultation." (recital 25, page 18)
I was recently asked to speak at a training event for NHH, the Hungarian communications regulator. They wanted to learn more about the Panel and the Toolkit. There is lots of material about the Toolkit on our website but what it boils down is a set of questions that can be used for a variety of purposes. They can be used as policy is being developed to ensure that consumers' interests are identified and reflected in the final decision. They can also be used to review an organisation's performance in relation to certain projects and overall.
Staff at the Hungarian regulator are making a big effort to find out the views of consumers and factor them into their decisions. They are hampered by the fact that Hungarian civil society is less developed than in the UK - a legacy of communist rule - but they are now drawing more heavily on market research and the consumer complaints data that they gather. All the presentations from the training event are available online and it will be interesting to see how other European regulators, and the European Commission itself, develop new ways of reflecting consumers' interests in their decisions.