Today, Thursday 16 January, a debate on the subject of “Nuisance Calls” is scheduled for the main commons chamber. It is the second item of backbench business to be fitted into a slot between roughly 11:30 and 17:00, and so is likely to begin at some time between 14:00 and 15:00.
The debate will be opened by Mike Crockart MP, who is likely to repeat his familiar call for revisions to the terms of the existing failed regulations, as proposed by Which?

Whilst supporting the obvious need to tidy up anomalies in the existing regulations, we suggest that much more radical action is required for there to be any significant change to the situation.

In summary, we are pleased to see many of our comments, as presented in evidence, noted in the report. We welcome the limited recommendations, but are concerned that they do not include the radical steps required to get to grips with this unacceptable and growing problem.

Not all telephone calls that we receive are welcome - if we wish to remain open to contact by telephone we cannot avoid this fact of life. Some calls are rightly classified as simply "Nuisance". There are laws and regulations intended to prevent the practice of making Nuisance Calls - that is what needs to be stopped. Sadly, poor enforcement action means a low level of compliance.

Our view is that very little is needed in terms of new legislation to address this problem - simply a few tweaks, the need for which has been accepted. The focus must be on measures to achieve compliance, including proper regulation and enforcement action by those best placed to achieve compliance. These are the respective sectoral regulators, not Ofcom and the ICO.

The ineffectiveness of Ofcom and the ICO, along with the mistaken belief that the TPS is some type of "service", as opposed to simply a means of indicating a widely-disrespected preference, leads many people to seek to take avoidance action themselves.

Not only is this unnecessary, apart from the situation of those who wish or need to have a call filtering device, it can also lead to worthless effort or expenditure. There are companies who seek to exploit the problem of nuisance calls for financial gain, in many cases overstating the likely benefit of what they offer and in some cases being engaged in outright scams.

Whilst TPS Limited is not itself wholly blameless in respect of improperly raised expectations, it publishes a list of those known to be engaged in offering products and services that are likely to be misrepresented.

We recently appeared in a broadcast of the BBC Wales series X-Ray which covered both a scam service and an ineffective blocking device. Both items are now available to view in a playlist →

Our stated conclusions are that:

• Many companies exploit people's vain hope that there is something that they themselves can do about nuisance calls.
• The only way to deal with the problem is for proper standards of conduct and compliance with the law to be enforced by those able to undertake such action.

Last month we reported Two Inquiries into Nuisance Calls.

The fair telecoms campaign has presented initial written evidence to the inquiry by the Culture Media and Sport Committee of parliament into Nuisance Telephone Calls and Texts. (see below)

We have also been invited to submit oral evidence to the Committee. This will take place in a session at 10:30 on Tuesday 3 September 2013. The proceedings will be shown live on the web, at http://www.parliamentlive.tv, and will be available to watch later there and on BBC Parliament.

All evidence, written and oral, will be published by the committee itself - see the inquiry webpage.

Following research, as part of a (in)Action Plan, Ofcom again chooses not to use its powers, whilst claiming "Ofcom is using the full extent of its legal powers"

The Ofcom "action plan" to deal with Silent Calls fails to address its unacceptable policy - which tolerates them!

Following sight of the Ofcom news release and coverage based on that, a further briefing has been issued.