Examination of witness (Questions 80 -
87)
MONDAY 22 JUNE 1998
MR DAVID
EDMONDS
80. You mentioned that you had about 40,000
complaints each year. Can you tell us how those complaints arrived
and how you deal with them?
(Mr Edmonds) They arrive through our telephones,
we have a battery of people who answer the telephone every day,
and they arrive through the mail. Quite a lot we deal with over
the telephone. We have got computerised help cards so the operators
on the end of the telephone can deal with basic issues like, "My
telephone bill is too high, what do I do about it?" The operator
will ask them where they live and then we give them the name and
address of the people they should get in touch with. Then there
is the more sophisticated complaint. A lot is dealt with on the
telephone. A lot is dealt with in correspondence. We have case
files. We have a team who answer as best they can, but we always
do try and push back to the telephone company matters which are
its concern. It is our statutory responsibility to deal with the
40,000 complaints.
81. The question which arises for me, and
I take the point you made earlier about your needing to respond
on the telephone in a more appropriate manner as an organisation
which is there to protect the consumer in terms of telephone usage,
but the point which arises from that for me is do you do any work
in relating the sorts of complaints, do you bracket different
types of complaints, log how many of those complaints you have
received in certain areas and perhaps does that lead you on to
carry out investigations of particular areas of activity?
(Mr Edmonds) Yes, it does.
82. And how would you do that?
(Mr Edmonds) We log every complaint, we analyse
complaints, we cross-reference complaints, and we produce a document
referred to in the Report called a "Competition Bulletin"
where we list the complaints by volume. We are about, in October
I think, to elaborate on that by releasing the names of the telephone
companies who are responsible for most of the complaints, so we
are moving down a route that has been used elsewhere in terms
of even greater transparency.
83. Can I come back to an issue that was
raised earlier and that relates to the issue about the confusion
in the consumer's mind about prices and standards and other things.
What I am trying to get to the root of is why, since your objective
is to provide benefit for the consumer, you do not test consumer
opinion ever and I wonder whether it is maybe a perceived confusion
on behalf of the consumer about whether or not they are benefiting
because of the confusion and the difficulty that they may have
in making a judgment that that is not used?
(Mr Edmonds) If I may correct a mis-statement
I made, we do not survey the consumer in the sense that I understood
your question. We do have a whole range of consumer representation.
We have a series of committees for England, Wales and Scotland,
we have a small business consumers' committee, we have a committee
for the disabled, and they do represent the consumer view. Now,
we have a huge amount of material from them representing, if you
like, the consumer and that is filtered in and I actually go to
part of all of those meetings and I think I have met nearly all
of those bodies so far, so I do get very immediate feedback from
groups of people who represent specific consumer interests and
we do take that into account. Clearly I think the tariffs, the
pricing has come through vividly in all the discussions I have
had so far with each of those groups.
84. I would just comment that a lot of organisations
that deal regularly with the public through different organisations
do sometimes feel that they do not get an objective point of view,
but one that is filtered through activist elements and a lot of
them have gone to consumer surveys to try and get a more genuine
view from the public.
(Mr Edmonds) I take the point.
Mr Page
85. Of the 40,000, how many actually filter
down for Oftel to deal with?
(Mr Edmonds) Again I do not know the answer to
that question. May I ask if any of my colleagues do? No, we do
not. Can I let you know?
Chairman
86. Yes, we would like a note on that.[9]
Could we also have a note, as it were, a miniature case study
of what you have done with respect to the competition position
in ISDN?[10]
I think I asked you for a detailed example and I do, to be frank,
view the pricing of digital lines in this country a disgrace in
comparison with our international competitors and I have to say
I think that BT's recent change of tariffs has been disingenuous
at best, so I would be interested to know what Oftel did about
that and how it handled it, and what its logic was so that we
can see an example.
(Mr Edmonds) I will work that example through
and write to you, sir.
87. Thank you very much indeed, and I am
sorry you have had to appear before us so soon after your arrival
in situ, but we all wish you the very best of luck with
a very important job.
(Mr Edmonds) Thank you very much for the opportunity.
9 Note: See Evidence, Appendix 1, page 12 (PAC
357). Back
10
Note: See Evidence, Appendix 1, page 15 (PAC 357). Back
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