Annex 3
SCBG COMMENTS ON THE OFCOM SCOPING PROJECT
The Satellite & Cable Broadcasters' Group
(the SCBG) wishes to take this opportunity to express some of
their concerns regarding the process and execution of the recently
published Towers Perrin Report to the Regulators' Steering Group
on the OFCOM Scoping Project.
Firstly, we would like to clarify that we do
appreciate this is very much work in progress and much of the
future form and role of OFCOM will be decided in the legislative
passage. We do not, therefore, assume to make detailed comment
on the content of the report. However, we do hope that the way
in which the Towers Perrin Report was conducted does not set a
precedent for future examination of the regulatory framework,
in which we are all stakeholders in our own right as ITC licensees.
From the outset, the Towers Perrin work was
surrounded by lack of openness which seems very much at odds with
the Better Regulation Taskforce principles of transparency and
accountability. The purpose of the project was not made clear,
with the consultants themselves describing it to one of our members
as being purely about how the logistics of how to integrate the
five buildings, accounting systems and so on. However, it becomes
clear that Towers Perrin were consulting a number of external
parties of their own choosing, which seemed to indicate a rather
different purpose.
On learning that there was an element of consultation,
our members again approached Towers Perrin. Our concern was that
all the varied types of business and structural models within
the industry had a voice, and the eventual make up of OFCOM would
be capable of accommodating them all equally. Yet this request
was refused in more than one case. Towers Perrin also declined
to reveal whom they were consulting, so we were not even given
the reassurance that our sector was represented in their thinking.
We also have considerable concerns regarding
the lack of any kind of cost or resource analysis in the final
report. The report projects that "in the short term more
work is likely to start than stop" and that there would be
an elimination of only a "small amount" of duplication.
But the report fails to address overall resource implications
on the basis that the functions of OFCOM are not yet defined (despite
being somehow able to estimate that the Radio Group could be staffed
by a "backbone of 20-25 employees"). These statements
would imply that costs will rise. Who will be paying for this
increase? And how does increased cost and resource sit alongside
the stated aim of the Communications White Paper to reduce regulatory
structure and burden?
Delivering the minimum necessary regulation
in a stream-lined and coherent manner is one of the key positions
of the White Paper but we fail to see how this is to be achieved
if, as it appears from the report, the same amount of regulation,
or even more, is to be delivered by the same separate regulators—even
if they are under one OFCOM roof. This desire to preserve all
the existing regulators, in all but name, is completely at odds
with the stated aims of the White Paper and calls into question
the validity of the entire exercise.
We hope that these concerns will be taken into
consideration by those who will be involved in the continuing
work towards establishing OFCOM, and that as we move forwards
we are able to share thinking and debate, and remain informed
as to progress. The regulatory environment shapes our business
health and wellbeing more than any one other factor. As stakeholders
in the regulatory future, we have a vital role to play in its
establishment.
November 2001
| 
