Statement on the making of amendment regulations under section 71 of the Communications Act 2003

On 11 November 2021, Ofcom published a statement entitled “The Electronic Communications (Universal Service) (Costs) (Amendment) Regulations 2021 Statement on the making of amendment regulations under section 71 of the Communications Act 2003” (The “Statement”).

In the Statement, we said that we had decided to make amendment regulations which would amend The Electronic Communications (Universal Service) (Costs) Regulations 2020 (the “Costs Regulations”) by:

1. substituting the term “central funds” for “public funds” and inserting a definition of public funds (see paragraphs 2.8 to 2.11 of the Statement);
2. amending the reference to The Electronic Communications (Universal Service) Regulations 2018 in footnote (a) on page 2 such that it includes the correct title of this statutory instrument which is The Electronic Communications (Universal Service) (Broadband) Regulations 2018 (see paragraph 2.14 of the Statement); and
3. adding the S.I. numbers for The Electronic Communications (Universal Service) Regulations 2003 (S.I. 2003/33) and The Electronic Communications (Universal Service) (Broadband) Regulations 2018 (S.I. 2018/1231) to Footnote (a) on page 2 (see paragraphs 2.12 and 2.13 of the Statement).

While we still intend to take action to ensure that the Costs Regulations are amended as outlined above, we have subsequently decided that the amending regulations will only deal with the matter referred to in paragraph 1 above. We intend to deal with the matters referred to in paragraphs 2 and 3 by way of correction slip instead of in amending regulations.

A revised copy of the draft amending regulations we intend to make is available below.

We plan to make the amendment regulations shortly after the publication of this update after which they will come into force. Once made, the amendment regulations will be available on the legislation.gov.uk website. We will submit a correction slip once the amendment regulations have come into force.

We consider that the impact of both (i) our decision to make the Regulations and (ii) our proposed course of action overall remains as stated in the Regulatory Impact Assessment annexed to the Statement.