Ofcom facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Office of Communications

Ofcom offices at Riverside House, Bankside, next to Southwark Bridge in London
Abbreviation	Ofcom
Formation	29 December 2003; 20 years ago (29 December 2003)
Type	Statutory corporation
Legal status	Created by Office of Communications Act 2002
Purpose	Regulator and competition authority for broadcasting, postal services, telecommunications and radiocommunications spectrum
Headquarters	London, England
Location	London, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Belfast, Manchester, Warrington
Region served	United Kingdom
Official language	English, Welsh
Chairman	Michael Grade
Chief Executive	Melanie Dawes
Main organ	Board of Directors
Staff (2019)	902 (full-time equivalents)

The Office of Communications, commonly known as Ofcom, is the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, telecommunications and postal industries of the United Kingdom.

Ofcom has wide-ranging powers across the television, radio, telecoms and postal sectors. It has a statutory duty to represent the interests of citizens and consumers by promoting competition and protecting the public from harmful or offensive material.

Some of the main areas Ofcom regulates are TV and radio standards, broadband and phones, video-sharing platforms online, the wireless spectrum and postal services.

The regulator was initially established by the Office of Communications Act 2002 and received its full authority from the Communications Act 2003.

History

On 20 June 2001, the Queen's Speech to the UK Parliament announced the creation of Ofcom. The new body, which was to replace several existing authorities, was conceived as a "super-regulator" to oversee media channels that were rapidly converging through digital transmission.

On 29 December 2003, Ofcom launched, formally inheriting the duties that had previously been the responsibility of five different regulators:

• the Broadcasting Standards Commission
• the Independent Television Commission
• the Office of Telecommunications (Oftel)
• the Radio Authority
• the Radiocommunications Agency

In July 2009, Conservative Party opposition leader David Cameron referenced Ofcom in a speech against the proliferation of quangos:

With a Conservative government, Ofcom as we know it will cease to exist… Its remit will be restricted to its narrow technical and enforcement roles. It will no longer play a role in making policy. And the policy-making functions it has today will be transferred back fully to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

Under Cameron's subsequent premiership of the 2010 UK coalition government, the Public Bodies Act 2011 did remove or modify several of Ofcom's duties, although it did not substantially reduce Ofcom's remit.

On 1 October 2011, Ofcom took over responsibility for regulating the postal services industry from the Postal Services Commission (Postcomm).

In April 2015, Ofcom announced that telephone companies would have to provide customers with a set charge for the cost of calling numbers starting with 084, 087 and 09. The streamlining of these charges must be printed in each customer's contract and monthly bills. The change came into force on 1 July 2015 and affected over 175 million phone numbers, making it the biggest overhaul of telephoning in over a decade.

On 1 January 2016, the regulation of video on demand was transferred to Ofcom from ATVOD, the Authority for Television on Demand.

The Digital Economy Act 2017 extended Ofcom's remit and powers. Ofcom were given powers concerning the minimum broadband speed provided by Internet service providers, the ability to financially penalise communications providers for failing to comply with licence commitments and the power to require public service broadcasters to include a minimum quantity of children's programming made in the United Kingdom. The act also transferred to Ofcom the regulation of the BBC, a duty previously undertaken by the BBC Trust, and updated the Ofcom Electronic Communications Code to make it easier for telecommunications companies to erect and extend mobile masts.

Following a consultation over the Online Harms White Paper published by the UK government in April 2019, the government announced in February 2020 that it intended Ofcom to have a greater role in Internet regulation to protect users from "harmful and illegal content".

Timeline of communications regulators

* Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications

Activities

Television and radio

Ofcom licenses all UK commercial television and radio services in the UK. Broadcasters must comply by the terms of their licence, or risk having it revoked. Ofcom also publishes the Broadcasting Code, a series of rules which all broadcast content on television and radio must follow.

Telephone and broadband

Ofcom regulates the UK telecoms sector, defining and enforcing the conditions by which all mobile and fixed-line phone and broadband companies must abide. These 'general conditions' are wide-ranging rules relating to matters such as telephone numbering, emergency services, sales, marketing and interconnection standards. Ofcom's investigation unit monitors compliance with the conditions and resolves disputes between providers.

Ofcom is also the competition authority for telecoms, enforcing remedies in markets where it believes dominant operators may have a potentially harmful influence on competition or consumers. One of its most high-profile interventions was to require BT to split its wholesale and retail arms into separate companies, bringing about the creation of Openreach which supplies wholesale services to both BT Retail and competing providers.

On 1 July 2015, Ofcom made a number of changes to the way phone calls to UK service numbers would be charged. Under the new legislation, which was promoted by an information campaign entitled UK Calling, call charges must be clearly stated on all materials that advertise a service number. The changes came after research found that callers are often confused about service call charges, and thus can avoid calling these numbers. The July 2015 changes also saw 'freephone numbers' 0800 and 0808 become free to call from both mobiles and landlines.

In March 2016, Ofcom launched an interactive "Mobile coverage and fixed broadband checker", allowing people to check mobile coverage and broadband speeds via their post code.

Spectrum licensing and protection

Ofcom is responsible for the management, regulation, assignment and licensing of the electromagnetic spectrum in the UK, and licenses portions of it for use in television and radio broadcasts, mobile phone transmissions, private communications networks, wireless devices and so on. The process of licensing varies depending on the type of use required. Some licences simply have to be applied and paid for; other commercial licences are subject to a bidding process. Most of the procedures in place have been inherited from the systems used by the previous regulators. However, Ofcom may change some of these processes in future.

Ofcom protects the radio spectrum in a number of ways:

• Working within international organisations (ITU, CEPT and BEREC).
• Licensing UK-controlled commercial radio spectrum; the Ministry of Defence controls its own spectrum. Within the international framework for frequency use; Ofcom liaises through the UK Government to produce the UKFAT (UK Frequency Allocation Table). The current table was produced in 2017.
• Investigate and, when necessary, carry out enforcement activities to clear interference or illegal use from the spectrum. Until June 2010 Ofcom investigated all interference cases within the UK. Interference reporting has now been transferred to the BBC. This contract specifically excludes any requirement to investigate interference relating to AM radio reception. Commercial and spectrum licence holders report to Ofcom and in all cases illegal ("pirate") radio operations are still reported to Ofcom.

Postal services

In October 2010 the government announced plans for Ofcom to inherit the functions of Postcomm as part of a wider set of public service sell-off measures. Following the Postal Services Act 2011 regulatory responsibility for postal services transferred to Ofcom on 1 October 2011, with its primary duty to maintain the UK's six-day-a-week universal postal service.

Consultations

Ofcom makes extensive use of consultations with industry and the public to help it make decisions based upon the evidence presented. Consultation processes begin with publishing documents on its website, asking for views and responses. If the document is perceived to be long and complicated, a plain English summary is usually published as well. A period, usually of 10 weeks, is allowed for interested persons, companies or organisations to send in their responses to the consultation.

After this consultation period, Ofcom publishes all the responses on its website, excluding any personal or confidential information. Ofcom then prepares a summary of the responses received, and uses this information as a basis for its decisions.

Leadership

Current

Michael Grade, Baron Grade of Yarmouth was appointed as chairman of Ofcom for a four-year term from 1 May 2022.

The current Chief Executive is Melanie Dawes who was appointed on 12 February 2020.

Historical

The first chairman of Ofcom (2002–2009) was David Currie, Dean of Cass Business School at City University and a life peer under the title Lord Currie of Marylebone. The first chief executive (2003–2007) was Stephen Carter, Baron Carter of Barnes, formerly a senior executive of JWT UK and NTL and subsequently a Minister for Communications, Technology and Broadcasting.

Colette Bowe was appointed Ofcom chairman with effect from 11 March 2009. She was the founding chairman of the Telecoms Ombudsman Council, and chaired Ofcom's Consumer Panel from its inception in 2003 to December 2007.

Dame Patricia Hodgson DBE was appointed as chairman of Ofcom for a three-year term from April 2014. She was a member of the Ofcom board from July 2011 and became deputy chairman in January 2012. On 18 July 2016, it was announced that her term would be extended for a further year until 2018.

Sharon White was Ofcom's chief executive from 2015 to 2019, having replaced Ed Richards in the role.

After Sharon White was appointed the Chief Executive of John Lewis in June 2019, the office of Chief Executive remained open until Jonathan Oxley was appointed as Interim Chief Executive. In February 2020, it was announced that Melanie Dawes would become the new Chief Executive.

On 15 March 2016, it was announced that Steve Gettings would become Corporation Secretary in succession to Graham Howell.

Key personnel

Ofcom's key personnel are:

• Chief Executive, Melanie Dawes, appointed February 2020
• Board members:
  • Maggie Carver, Deputy Chair, appointed September 2018
  • Jonathan Oxley, appointed January 2015
  • Graham Mather, appointed June 2014
  • Ben Verwaayen, appointed January 2016
  • Tim Suter, appointed September 2017
  • Bob Downes, appointed February 2018
  • Angela Dean, appointed September 2018
  • David Jones, appointed April 2019

Ofcom publishes a register of disclosable interests of the Ofcom board.

Chairman of Ofcom

Status

     Denotes Acting Chairman

No.	Portrait	Name (Birth–Death)	Term of office		Honour(s)	Prime Minister	Monarch (Reign)
1		David Currie, Baron Currie of Marylebone (1946–)	29 December 2003	11 March 2009		Tony Blair	Elizabeth II (1952–2022)
						Gordon Brown
2		Colette Bowe (1946–)	11 March 2009	31 March 2014
						David Cameron
3		Patricia Hodgson (1947–)	1 April 2014	31 December 2017
						Theresa May
4		Terence Burns, Baron Burns (1944–)	1 January 2018	31 December 2020
						Boris Johnson
–		Maggie Carver (1964–)	1 January 2021	30 April 2022
5		Michael Grade, Baron Grade of Yarmouth (1943–)	1 May 2022	Incumbent
						Liz Truss
							Charles III (2022–)
						Rishi Sunak

Chief Executive Officer of Ofcom

• 29 December 2003 – 31 July 2006 Stephen Carter
• 1 August 2006 – 5 October 2006 Chairman of Ofcom (Acting)
• 5 October 2006 – 31 December 2014 Ed Richards
• 1 January 2015 – 23 March 2015 Steve Unger (Acting)
• 23 March 2015 – 27 November 2019 Sharon White
• 27 November 2019 – March 2020 Jonathan Oxley (Acting)
• March 2020 – present Melanie Dawes

Ofcom committees

Ofcom has a number of committees and advisory bodies which inform the Ofcom Board and Executive. These include:

• Communications Consumer Panel (CCP)
• Advisory Committee for Older and Disabled People (ACOD)
• Risk and Audit Committee
• Nominations Committee
• Remuneration Committee
• Election Committee
• Non-Executive Remuneration Committee
• Nations Committee
• Advisory Committee for England
• Advisory Committee for Northern Ireland
• Advisory Committee for Scotland
• Advisory Committee for Wales
• Community Radio Fund Panel
• Ofcom Spectrum Advisory Board (OSAB)
• Broadcast Licensing Committee

UK hate speech regulation

Since 1 January 2021, Ofcom has defined hate speech as "all forms of expression which spread, incite, promote or justify hatred based on intolerance on the grounds of disability, ethnicity, social origin, sex, gender, gender reassignment, nationality, race, religion or belief, [...], colour, genetic features, language, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth or age." However, there is concern that Ofcom's broad definition of hate speech can easily result in the unjustified censorship of controversial opinions, however legitimate they might be.

See also

• Overton window
• Advertising Standards Authority
• Annan Committee, that in 1977 recommended the establishment of a Broadcasting Complaints Commission
• Broadband stakeholder group
• Office of Fair Trading
• Press Complaints Commission
• ATVOD
• ITSPA
• ISPA
• Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO)
• International Telecommunication Union
• List of telecommunications regulatory bodies
• Roskomnadzor