Proposed modification to Consumer Protection Condition 1

  • Start: 19 February 2013
  • Status: Statement published
  • End: 20 March 2013

Under section 51 of the Postal Services Act 2011, Ofcom may set regulatory conditions which require postal operators to make payments relating to the expenses of specified consumer bodies. Ofcom imposed Consumer Protection Condition 1 ("CP1") under that section on 27 March 2012 (PDF, 165.5 KB).

The bodies specified in section 51 were the National Consumer Council (which runs Consumer Focus); and the Office of Fair Trading ("OFT") (which ran Consumer Direct). Consumer Direct provided a call centre and online resources to facilitate access to consumer advice. Consumer Focus' remit centres on consumer advocacy.

As laid out in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills' ("BIS") Empowering and protecting consumers' document, BIS has stated its intention to bring together "the technical expertise of Consumer Focus and the research it undertakes with the information gathered by Citizens Advice bureaux and through advice help lines."

BIS noted the importance of "continuity and capability during a time of economic stress" and therefore set out a phased transition. In April 2012, the Citizens Advice consumer service was launched, replacing the telephone and online service previously administered by Consumer Direct.

In the March 2012 statement on the regulatory framework for postal services we highlighted that we would need to change the references to the OFT1 in CP12 in light of the then proposed change in provider of the consumer advice service. We also noted that this could not be altered until the Postal Services Act 2011 (the "Act") had been amended.

A statutory instrument which would make this amendment was laid before Parliament in December 2012. This has now come into force and the change to the Act is in effect from 28 March 2013.

In light of this proposed change, we published a consultation on 19 February 2013 which set out our proposed changes to CP1 (PDF, 158.1 KB) to allow us to collect payments from regulated postal operators relating to the expenses of Citizens Advice and Citizens Advice Scotland.

This statement sets out our decision on the modifications required to CP1. The statutory notification of the modified CP1 is contained in Annex 1, an unofficial consolidated version of the modified CP1 which has been marked up to show the modifications that have been made is contained in Annex 2 and Annex 3 contains an unofficial consolidated clean version of the modified CP1 Condition.

Footnotes

1. See page 223, paragraph 12.156 at https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0029/74279/Securing-the-Universal-Postal-Service-statement.pdf

2. Which was imposed in accordance with section 51 of, and paragraph 3 of schedule 6 of the Postal Services Act 2011


Main documents

Supporting documents