Wednesday 20 March 2019 12:00 am | Updated: Monday 03 June 2019 1:42 am

Regulators must do more to help consumers navigate markets, national audit body says

Britain’s four main regulatory bodies need to do more to help consumers navigate increasingly expensive markets and get the best deals available, the National Audit Office (NAO) said today.

Debt was the most common problem people sought help with across the utilities, communications and financial services sectors due to high bills and credit payments, the NAO said this morning in a report on Britain’s regulatory system.

It urged the bodies responsible for regulating these sectors – Ofwat, Ofgem, Ofcom and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) – to “prove if they are effectively responding to consumer concerns or offering enough protection for those who need it”.

The NAO said increasing worries around debt in Britain came against a backdrop of rising prices, with real-terms increases of 28 per cent for gas, 37 per cent for electricity and 6 per cent for water since 2007.

It also said people found it difficult getting the best deal or service, and said customers who do not switch pay more for the same service as new customers, with this “loyalty penalty” costing consumers £4.1bn a year.

Joe Lane, policy manager at Citizens Advice, told City A.M: “Where people do get in to financial difficulties… we want to see regulators make sure providers are treating those people fairly, helping them get back on track and pay off their arrears.”

“It is important that all regulators across the essential service markets make sure that providers have a [debt] collection strategy which treats people fairly”, he said.

Caroline Normand of consumer rights organisation Which said: “Trust is severely lacking across a number of essential markets.”

"If faith is to be restored, a shake-up of the consumer enforcement system is needed to ensure regulators have the powers they require to take on the might of powerful companies.”

Yet the NAO's report found that the four regulators “have developed a good understanding of these consumer issues through their own research, insight and working with stakeholders” and “have high-level aims such as high quality [and] good value services”.

However, it said they do not set targets or other success measures to define what these mean in practical terms, such as what level of prices or service reliability they consider good or bad.