World Consumer Rights Day: Making a positive difference
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Philip Cullum
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Supply and Retail Market
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It feels like every other day is World Something Day – and indeed there are over 100, ranging from World Soil Day to International Jazz Day.
Many, of course, mark significant causes, whether diseases, social issues or environmental threats. As my colleague Rachel Fletcher reflected in her recent blog, International Women’s Day celebrates women’s achievements, and prompts focusing on making organisations including Ofgem more diverse.
I want to make the case for why today, 15 March, deserves particular attention. That’s because it’s World Consumer Rights Day.
It was on this date in 1962 that President John F. Kennedy sent a special message to the US Congress about protecting the consumer interest. It’s still relevant today.
It has been hugely influential for a range of reasons. It recognises the significance of the consumer interest, and the danger of neglecting it. It starts:
“Consumers, by definition, include us all. They are the largest economic group in the economy, affecting and affected by almost every public and private economic decision. Two-thirds of all spending in the economy is by consumers. But they are the only important group in the economy who are not effectively organized, whose views are often not heard.
The federal Government – by nature the highest spokesman for all the people – has a special obligation to be alert to the consumer's needs and to advance the consumer's interests.”
Another reason for its importance is that it connected consumers to wider economic and social success:
“If consumers are offered inferior products, if prices are exorbitant, if drugs are unsafe or worthless, if the consumer is unable to choose on an informed basis, then his dollar is wasted, his health and safety may be threatened, and the national interest suffers.”
Perhaps most important of all, it set out four consumer rights, the first iteration of an intellectual framework for consumer policy. These are: the right to safety, the right to be informed, the right to choose, and the right to be heard.
At Ofgem there are clear connections with our approach. Our battle-cry to make the retail market fairer could have been drawn straight from Kennedy’s call for rights about information and choice.
Our longstanding commitment to meaningful consumer engagement – whether research, behavioural insight and trials, or listening to consumer representatives as we develop, implement and assess our interventions – is closely tied to the right to be heard.
And his description of the right to choice could hardly be more relevant to our work: “to be assured, wherever possible, access to a variety of products and services at competitive prices; and in those industries in which competition is not workable and Government regulation is substituted, an assurance of satisfactory quality and service at fair prices.”
When I joined Ofgem nearly five years ago, I wondered how much of the debate internally would be focused around consumers. The answer quickly became clear – it’s all about consumers, every day.
That’s not just because my colleagues are truly motivated to make a positive difference for their fellow citizens, but also because it’s built into the fabric of the organisation.
Our principal statutory duty is to protect the interests of current and future consumers, and these words drive everything that Ofgem does. The principal objective – what Ofgem is fundamentally for – really is mentioned all the time.
One example of our work to protect consumers is our requirement that suppliers let customers know if there’s a cheaper tariff they could be on. We’re also working to strengthen protections for prepayment meter customers to stop them getting ripped off.
So whatever you do today – whether it’s fighting for your own consumer rights, or protecting those of others, do pause for just a moment to celebrate the enduring impact of a speech made 54 years ago.