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The Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which is responsible for examining the value for money of UK Government projects, is this morning expected to find that water, energy and broadband regulators (e.g. Ofcom) are not doing enough to support vulnerable customers, and will call on them to act more urgently to ensure people get the standard of service they deserve.
Just to recap. The PAC launched an inquiry earlier this year to examine the effectiveness of market regulators (Ofwat, Ofgem and Ofcom), which is designed to complement a recent report from the National Audit Office (NAO). The NAO found that Ofcom needed to improve their approach to ensure that consumers, particularly vulnerable users, receive good outcomes.
The NAO highlighted various telecoms related problems, such as with the well-known lack of awareness about broadband Social Tariffs (example), the difficulties that many consumers experience with contacting their ISP (e.g. email addresses being hard to find on websites), billing confusion and customers often not being directed to the relevant dispute resolution service (ombudsman for complaints handling).