Minutes of the meeting held on Thursday 20 September 2001 at 10.00 hours in Committee Room 1 of Anglesey County Council and continued in Committee Room 2 at 13.30 hours.

Present

Prof. M D Tedd, Chairman
Mrs P J Blackwell
Mr R J Edwards
Mr D O Evans
Mr J Simonds
Mrs L Tomos
Miss G M Williams
Mr O Evans, BT Policy Co-ordinator, Wales National Manager’s Office
Ms J Woods, Telecommunications Section, National Assembly
Mr M James, BT Price Control
Mr G Mackenzie Secretary

We also met Councillor N James, Vice Chairman of Anglesey County Council and Councillor G Parry MBE, Leader of Anglesey County Council

13/01 Welcome

The Chairman welcomed us to the meeting and introduced WACT to Councillor M James, the Vice Chairman who welcomed us to Anglesey County Council and hoped that we had a successful meeting. He was pleased to be able to host the meeting and to provide a buffet lunch afterwards. The Chairman apologised for his late arrival and thanked Councillor James for their hospitality.

14/01 Private Session

The Chairman had asked the visitors to come after 11.00 hours as he wished to speak in private on matters affecting the Secretariat. Members expressed their concerns, and agreed that WACT should write to the Director General disassociating WACT from the OFTEL Welsh Language Scheme in view of the proposed changes which are so different from the present position; language issues should be properly dealt with and Welsh speakers should have equal access. We should also express firmly WACT’s concern at the effect of the proposed changes on Welsh consumers. The changes go against the trend of strengthening devolved bodies and serving bodies in Wales from Wales. It was not just a question of Welsh Language issues, but London bodies lack awareness of Welsh geography and other costs. In concentrating on cost it was felt that Oftel had missed the point of value. It was also felt that the Head of Oftel’s CRS section should be invited to our meeting. The Chairman agreed to draft two letters and e-mail the drafts round for the committee to see and comment on.

This discussion took us beyond 11.00 hours; the visitors were brought in for the rest of the agenda.

15/01 Apologies for Absence

Apologies were received from Mrs K Counsell and Mr I Lebbon.

16/01 Minutes

The Minutes were accepted as a true record after the following corrections were made. In page 2 – in the second line of the 04/01 Chairman’s report "losr" should read "lost" and in the following paragraph "Llanbedwr Pathway" should be "Llwybr Pathway".

17/01 Matters Arising

Under 42/00 Mr Edwards reported that Sue Essex is looking forward to coming to a meeting to discuss mobile masts and planning issues in North Wales. He is to follow this up with Ms J Woods outside the meeting.

On FEI Mr O Evans offered to help.

On holding the (029) number for Wales, the Chairman had spoken with the Oftel numbering people and their timescale was now a little easier. Because of this he felt that Easter of next year would be a better time to write to local authorities etc. in Wales, as it would be inappropriate to start too soon. Mr Edwards had received support for it when he had raised it while on the Postwatch stand at the Eisteddfod. The Chairman had now looked at all the responses to Oftel and the main objections had come from Wrexham, Monmouth and Pembrokeshire. Mrs Tomos felt it was important to present it positively as the media questions tended to be very negative as being more newsworthy.

On OFCOM there had been a Paving Bill to establish OFCOM and enable money to be committed. Oftel’s position was now positive in expecting consumer representation to be handled in the separate Countries and the Director General had asked the Chairmen to write to him so that he could forward this to the bill team with his recommendation.

06/01 Oftel Welsh Language Scheme. The Welsh Language Board had pretty well agreed all issues but had raised one point about writing to bodies in Wales. Here they wished WACT to write bilingually when we did not know which language they wished to use. It was agreed that that this was acceptable.

18/01 Chairman’s Report

There were some regional representation issues. A New Oftel Forum had been established which meets once a quarter and consumer representatives are invited to alternate meetings. We should thus be represented every six months. The first meeting is on 2 November 2001 and the Chairman expects to attend; others would be welcome, but we don’t all need to go! Those interested were asked to communicate with the Secretary. There is also the ACT members’ conference, to be held on 21/22 November 2001, which all members should try to attend.

There were two other groups that the Chairman had become involved in.

The E envoy had set up a broadband stakeholder group (BSG) and the Chairman had been invited by NAfW to join one of the BSG’s task groups (on Competition & Co-operation). This group had met three times, and conducted most of its business electronically, and had now finished its work. The main BSG meets next Thursday and it is expected that the Competition & Co-operation group’s report will appear as an Appendix to the main planning group’s report. Nearly all those on the group had been from the telecommunications industry. It was a very interesting group in general and the main thrust had been how to work with industry and how to help industry. The Chairman’s input had concentrated on the needs of rural people; he had been pleased to see the group viewed this as a new interesting area.

Mr R Edwards said that the National Assembly’s Agriculture and Rural Development Committee was conducting a review of rural ICT and had asked for written contributions; he asked the Chairman if he had submitted a paper. He has promised to do so.

On Objective One there were a large number of local and regional partnerships. The Chairman had become a member of the Infrastructure Regional Partnership, which covered energy, transport and waste disposal as well as telecommunications. There were about eighteen members, few of whom had any telecommunications knowledge, so limited time was devoted to discussions on telecommunications for which there was a budget of some £65 million. He encouraged BT in particular to consider what proposals they could make for investment in the Objective One area. Mr O Evans said that there was a team looking at it, to find out what we can do in Wales.

19/01 Member’s interest in items in the Oftel Management plan

Some members had not so far returned their forms. It was intended that members should express interest in particular areas. This information would be passed on to Oftel managers so that they could approach us at an early stage. Oftel, however, had also employed consultants so it was expected that they would be more likely to seek their advice first. Members were encouraged to respond to the Secretary to co-ordinate our response and send it off to Oftel as quickly as possible.

20/01 Oftel Condoc "Competition in the provision of fixed telephony service".

This taken after hearing Mr M James of BT’s presentation. See 29/01 below

21/01 Oftel Statement on "Telecom Ombudsman Scheme"

The Secretary had attended a meeting in London looking at ways of implementing this. There had been general agreement on working together to try to set up a voluntary Ombudsman scheme in a very tight timetable. This scheme would deal mainly with complaints from residential users. The SACOT and DIEL Chairmen had been nominated to join the working group to leaven the operators’ ideas and thrash out a scheme that would both meet the timescale, before Ministers impose more drastic regulation in the OFCOM Bill, and Oftel's expectations. Clearly some of the operators thought that the timescale was too ambitious and that the scheme might prove too expensive, but there is a willingness to attempt to reach agreement.

22/01 Oftel Statement on Universal Service Obligation

The Chairman commented that he had been very disappointed with this statement. He reiterated the headings that we had put forward: the 100 man hours rule, minimum data bandwidth, coverage of mobile telephony, Universal Service Fund and ongoing review mechanisms. The only one that was likely to be addressed was data bandwidth, but not until 2003! There was a great lack of detail in comparison with the time that we had spent on it. He was authorised to write to the Director General to express our concern. On the 100 man hours rule, Miss Williams had been thinking that with the foot and mouth problems these people need a telephone and why should BT hold the brunt of it. We have argued consistently for a Universal Service Fund and as time goes by the case for it is becoming stronger over the years. WACT is to write informing Oftel that we are watching developments very carefully and expect the 100 man hours rule to be replaced by something more useful probably a monetary measure. It was suggested that we could include our response in Oftel News.

23/01 Presentation by Mr O Evans of BT

Mr Owen Evans BT gave an interesting presentation on the structural changes within BT. His slides are reproduced at Appendix A.

24/01 Secretary’s Report

In a brief report, the Secretary referred to the number of complaint issues received by WACT. These were: June 2001-303, July 2001-494 and August 2001-443. The reason for the increase in July was the severe storms and the build up of fault repairs. It was clear that numbers were increasing again and anything extra like severe weather would cause them to go up again.

On the financial spend we were within budget, in fact, if anything in an underspend situation.

25/01 Press Cuttings

Members expressed their appreciation of the cuttings circulated.

26/01 Any Other Business

There was nothing raised.

27/01 Dates of next meetings

In view of the Chairman’s wish to have the Secretariat attend the December meal and also the need to have an overnight stay with a senior Oftel speaker addressing the meeting, it was decided to change the venue to Cardiff. The Secretary is to circulate suitable dates for the whole of 2002 and seek members’ views on these.

We adjourned for a buffet lunch supplied by Anglesey County Council at this point and reconvened for the last items afterwards.

28/01 Short presentation by Mr M James of BT

Mr James gave a very interesting presentation of BT's view of why they were opposed to continuing price controls enforced by licence conditions. There were several questions, which he answered, but obviously WACT had a different view of the need for continuing controls although there were areas of agreement, particularly in relation to a universal fund. {Secretary's Note. I now have a three-folder copy of BT's response to the Condoc.}

29/01 Oftel Condoc "Competition in the provision of fixed telephony service".

WACT supports the general market analysis in the paper. There are the usual problems such as lack of competition in rural Wales, meaning that geographic averaging is very important. Indirect Access will become more important. Calls from fixed lines to mobile telephones are a separate and very important market; even the poorest consumers are suffering from the high charges for such calls.