Just as the problem of nuisance phone calls is finally being addressed Parliamentary Committees, the LSE Media Policy Project releases its latest policy brief, which deals exactly with this issue. The brief’s author LSE Visiting Senior Fellow Claire Milne introduces the report which shows the rapid increase in the problem over the last two years and offers recommendations for overcoming the current problems.
In recent years there has been a marked rise in the number of complaints received about nuisance calls and the issue is finally getting the attention of policy makers. An All Party Parliamentary Group on Nuisance Calls was formed on 15 July 2013. The group immediately called for written evidence, and the House of Commons Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport also launched an inquiry into the issue. This could be seen as a success for citizens advocacy groups like Which? and Citizens Advice, and others that had been campaigning for government and policy makers to take action on the issue. However taking action is not straightforward.
Looking at data from Ofcom and the Telephone Preference Service shows that the number of complaints to each of these about nuisance calls has more than tripled just in the last two years.
Figure 1 Nuisance call complaints received by Ofcom and TPS since July 2010
Within these numbers are complaints about both legal and illegal nuisance calls. One aspect of the nuisance calls problem is that many of the calls that annoy people are actually legal. The decreasing costs of both network and human resources for calling, and hunger for revenues in the current economic climate may have motivated more calling. Consent rules might need to be changed, and various filtering technologies will also be needed; the range of these should be improved and consumers must be properly informed about them.
Another issue is enforcement of the rules and protecting consumers from illegal calls. Illegal nuisance calls, such as recorded messages and repeated silent calls, as well as spam texts to mobile phones, are widespread and form a significant problem according to consumers.
Recently enforcement has gathered both pace and force, given the increased penalties that those charged with enforcement can now levy in cases of violations. However regulators still face significant challenges in enforcing the rules on unsolicited calls. Before they can act, regulators need to gather large amounts of evidence of wrongdoing, which must be kept scrupulously confidential and can even hinder the sharing of information among those charged with regulating. The two main relevant regulators, the Information Commissioner’s Office and Ofcom, appear to have fewer than 20 full-time equivalent staff members between them to deal with many thousands of complaints a month and many hundreds, at least, of potential miscreants.
An integrated plan to address the problem of nuisance calls is needed, with a single point of overall control. Consumers will continue to suffer unless Government takes urgent action to enable coordination between the regulatory agencies responsible for dealing with nuisance calls and also the telephone companies who carry them. These bodies need to make it easier for consumers to complain, and work with Government to review existing rules.
The post gives the views of the author, and does not represent the position of the LSE Media Policy Project blog, nor of the London School of Economics.
The full policy brief is available here and on our resources page.