HM Customs and Revenue have started to sponsor a new TV programme on Channel Five, to help small businesses.

With this in mind, would it not be a good idea for Ofcom to start advertising on TV that companies using 084 and 087 numbers are taking a rake off from the public's call charges - all in the name of openness and letting the public know the truth.   ;D

Jolly good idea but I doubt if they would do it though

poppasmurf wrote on Mar 24^th, 2010 at 6:08pm:

HM Customs and Revenue have started to sponsor a new TV programme on Channel Five, to help small businesses. With this in mind, would it not be a good idea for Ofcom to start advertising on TV that companies using 084 and 087 numbers are taking a rake off from the public's call charges - all in the name of openness and letting the public know the truth.   ;D

So, taxpayers' money is now being spent to sponsor a programme which, in effect, promotes the HMRC - which is the government agency responsible for collecting taxpayers' money.

Only in 21st Century Britain.

How can the HMRC justify spending revenue on advertising when the chancellor is pleading poverty, and in any event I am sure that we all know about the HMRC and what they are about I am sure that you will all agree, it is the one service that doesn't need advetising.

The gap between the tax that should be paid and what HMRC is collecting is thought by some to be greater than the current account deficit. It is suggested that each additional tax inspector collects 10 times their cost, so we should be spending more money on civil servants rather than less.

We will have to wait to see whether the £370,000 spent on The Business Inspector will be shown to be money wisely invested.

I understand and repeat what could be a valid argument, but I am not yet convinced.

I am told that Ofcom has a very small budget for publicity, which is why so little has been done with 03. Unlike HMRC, Ofcom could not claim that TV advertising would possibly help the public finances. Like the information disseminated through The Business Inspector, anything sponsored by Ofcom would help people or businesses, but only them.

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Mar 28^th, 2010 at 12:15pm:

I am told that Ofcom has a very small budget for publicity, which is why so little has been done with 03.

Is that why Ofcom still took full page national newspaper advertising in several of the national newspapers two or three years ago to claim what a great new competitive world for telecoms we would now be entering with Ofcom now having fully de-regulated the cost of BT line rental and nearly all phone calls. ::)

But since then the minimum call charge has risen around 200% for anyone without a call package and the minimum cost of line rental for ordinary citizens on normal incomes has gone up about 65% :o

This will be the same splendid de-regulated but suppsedly competitive world in which BT is allowed to put big signs on its phone boxes claiming calls cost 1p per minute while totally hiding that 0845 calls, which are cheaper than 01/02/03 calls on a landline (for those who do not have call packages), cost a staggering 20p per minute from a BT Payphone.

Ofcom have plenty of money, which is why their top civil servants are paid so much, they just choose not to spend it on anything that would allow the public to be better educated about the cost of making phone calls. >:( >:( >:(

NGMsGhost wrote on Apr 7^th, 2010 at 9:24am:

...  they just choose not to spend it on anything that would allow the public to be better educated about the cost of making phone calls.

Totally agree, they have to answer to those who pay the money.

Lat year's Call Costs Guide was largely a sick joke for those not with BT. Let us hope that this partial regulation nonsense will be brought to an end shortly.

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Apr 7^th, 2010 at 9:55am:

Lat year's Call Costs Guide was largely a sick joke for those not with BT. Let us hope that this partial regulation nonsense will be brought to an end shortly.

Yet Ofcom seem to have no trouble being very strict indeed with late night 09 adult sex chat channels in the Sky EPG that give their viewers what they were actually hoping to see.  Or indeed encrypted pay adult movie channels that give their viewers what they were hoping to see rather than just soft core porn.  Of course you will no doubt tell me that Ofcom is bound by different and much stricter legislation here but the only people they are usually serving are either prurient representatives of the more fundamentalist churches with nothing better to do or alternatively their competitor porn channels who feel that they are showing something that they cannot do due to stricter internal compliance in adhering with the legislation.  All seems a bit pointless when you can see almost anything without significant censorship (so long as it it only involves adults of 18 or over and nobody is suffering serious physical harm) on the internet.

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Apr 7^th, 2010 at 9:55am:

Totally agree, they have to answer to those who pay the money.

Yet they have still the nerve to extensively misrepresent themselves to journalists as being a form of watchdog protecting the best interests of the general public.

If they weren't quite as utterly spineless and useless as they are in controlling telecoms companies then I suppose somebody form Ofcom might even occasionally to post to defend their actions in this discussion forum.

NGMsGhost wrote on Apr 7^th, 2010 at 10:54am:

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Apr 7th, 2010 at 9:55am: Totally agree, they have to answer to those who pay the money. Yet they have still the nerve to extensively misrepresent themselves to journalists as being a form of watchdog protecting the best interests of the general public. If they weren't quite as utterly spineless and useless as they are in controlling telecoms companies then I suppose somebody form Ofcom might even occasionally to post to defend their actions in this discussion forum.

As you rightly quote, Ofcom's two principal duties under the law are to further the interests of "citizens" and "consumers". It is however not funded by them (directly) but by those whom it regulates. It therefore actually seeks to protect is the good name and standing of the respective industries and the effectiveness of a market delivering benefits to consumers. (The "citizen" bit gets horribly confused.)

Ofcom has threatened to show some spine recently in challenging both BSkyB and the mobile operators. We hope for radical proposals to come forward shortly in respect of charges for calling NTS and PRS numbers. Let us hope that perhaps something good will emerge from one or more of these efforts.

If this forum exists essentially to present a limited range of opinions and to stand squarely on one side of particular arguments, it cannot be expected to attract contributions from those who share none of its aims. Ofcomwatch does publish responses from Ofcom through interviews, however there is no ongoing dialogue.