Government axes Consumer Focus and OFT

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) and Consumer Focus have been axed as part of the Government’s review of publicly funded bodies.

The work of these two key consumer protection bodies will be split between other organisations and a charity, in a move that has stunned consumer protection experts.

The consumer-related protection, advice, advocacy and research work at international and national level carried out by Consumer Focus and the OFT will be farmed out to Citizens Advice; which is a charitable organisation.

Perversely, the OFT is one of the public bodies that help fund Citizens Advice and there are real concerns about how the charity, which relies heavily on volunteers, will be able to run the specialised services set up by the OFT.

This includes the Consumer Direct helpline used by thousands of consumers for advice. It is also not clear if CAB will be given the legal powers the OFT and Consumer Focus have.

Local trading standards offices will now have sole responsibility for enforcing almost all consumer law in their area. The Government said, however, that it wanted expert teams within Trading Standards to handle national and regional threats.

The competitions and market investigations functions of the Office of Fair Trading will be merged into the Competition Commission.

Writing in his blog, Jim Killock of the Open Rights Group which has worked with Consumer Focus was scathing about the proposals and said: “This has all the hallmarks of a rushed decision. There is no sense that anyone has really thought about the consequences, but I’ll bet they won’t be good, or in line with the Coalition’s own aims."

Citizens Advice released a statement today saying it "warmly welcome the proposal that in future the Citizens Advice service should have the lead responsibility for the non-financial consumer education, information and advice and consumer-related research and advocacy functions currently undertaken by the Office of Fair Trading and Consumer Focus.

However when questioned further about how it intended to train staff to continue the work of the OFT and Consumer Focus, a representative said the charity was not able to comment until the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (Bis) had worked out detailed plans.

However Mike O'Connor Consumer Focus' chief executive said: "The issue now is not who does the work but that the work is done well...The expertise and knowledge that has enabled us to fight for consumers must not be lost.

"Changes must not be at the expense of the public’s rights and needs - which organisations like Consumer Focus were created to protect."

Vince Cable, the secretary of state for Bis said the plans will be drawn up quickly and go for public consultation, but it is expected that both the OFT and Consumer Focus will be wound up in 2012.