Member Article

The future of consumer enforcement

Consumer enforcement systems will see major changes to become more efficient, localised and customer focussed.

Clive Maxwell, chief executive of the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) spoke last week at the Trading Institute Institute (TSI) Year Ahead conference on “national priorities, local delivery and outcomes.”

He said the future of the consumer protection regime will make up and important section of OFT’s work, who will work alongside the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to ensure the proper reforms are made to the service.

Mr Maxwell also said OFT would collaborate with Trading Standards Services (TSS) to enforce law changes, adding that the organisation would need to respond to challenges brought up by regime changes.

OFT currently deals with consumer queries, and will remain fully operational in this aspect until April 2014, when the Consumer Protection Partnership (CPP) will take over responsibility for information on consumer risk.

Cases where a persistent problem has occurred across the market will still be dealt with by OFT
and CMA, while TSS will take on the majority of cases where are consumer reports a grievance against an individual firm.

Mr Maxwell said: “The OFT – and the CMA – will continue to play a vital role on consumer enforcement.

“We’ve listened hard, we’ve made changes, and we’ll continue to do so. And TSS are changing too.

“We are seeing some excellent examples of collaborative working and agreements to share staff and expertise.

“But this is only the start of the process to make this system work, local trading standards must continue to change and to rise to this and other challenges ahead, as some are already doing.”

TSS were urged to work collectively with national groups and forums to share intelligence and priorities.

Mr Maxwell added that local trading standards services must given powers to face the “challenges of the future”, while the focus on the consumer must be “at the heart of the system.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Miranda Dobson .