Conclusion 2

The public may be disappointed with the new regime if people cannot quickly see improvements to their online experience or understand how their complaints are acted on. As the regulatory regime will not be fully implemented until 2026, there is a risk that public confidence in the regime will be undermined if it does not quickly bring about tangible changes to people’s online experience. A key mechanism for instilling confidence would be if people could see that their complaints were acted on. Individuals must complain in the first instance to service providers. Ofcom will set out how it expects service providers to handle complaints, including communicating effectively with the user, but it has no powers to require providers to act on the complaints. Individuals can then complain to Ofcom if they remain concerned. Ofcom has set up a contact centre to receive such complaints, but it is not able to act on them individually. Instead, Ofcom will review complaints alongside its normal monitoring data to decide if it needs to take further action where there are systemic concerns about a service provider. Where Ofcom does act, it does not currently have a mechanism for feeding back directly to individuals on what impact their complaint has had. Recommendation 2: Ofcom needs to develop mechanisms to provide feedback to complainants, particularly where this has contributed to Ofcom taking action against a service provider.