The UK telecoms regulator, Ofcom, has today proposed to make it quicker for people to access Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) providers, which are third-party ombudsman schemes that help consumers to resolve complaints with their phone providers, broadband ISPs and mobile operators.
The regulator currently requires that all telecoms service providers – those offering services to consumers and small businesses – must be members of an approved ADR scheme (there are two of these – CISAS (CEDR) and the Communications Ombudsman). The schemes are free for consumers to access and designed to supplement (not replace) your provider’s own internal complaint procedure(s), although ISPs often have to pay sizeable costs (hundreds of pounds) regardless of whether they win or lose a case.
The ADR process is usually seen as a last line of defence for consumers and thus such schemes are generally only used after a dispute has gone unresolved for 8 weeks, or earlier with the agreement of their provider (i.e. the “Deadlock Letter” stage). See our ISP Complaints and Advice section for more information.
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However, Ofcom have been reviewing the current ADR process since November 2023 (here), and as part of that they’ve today identified some room for improvement. Between January 2022 and 2024, a significant majority (79%) of complaints received by the main providers were found to have been resolved in less than a week, with 94% within six weeks. This is good, but not for everybody.
Among the remaining 700,000 complainants, a relatively small proportion (around 19%) were able to get their issue resolved or were referred to ADR by the end of the current 8-week deadline. “This suggests that a material number of consumers were left with their complaint – and any associated harm – unresolved for a further two weeks before being able to access ADR,” said Ofcom. The regulator is thus proposing, among other tweaks, to cut this wait period from 8 to 6 weeks.
Ofcom’s ADR Change Proposals
Consumer access to ADR
We are proposing to reduce the timeframe before consumers can access ADR from 8 weeks to 6 weeks. We think this change is necessary to ensure that the ADR regime remains effective and gives consumers prompt access to dispute resolution.
Re-approval of CO and CISAS
We propose to re-approve both CO and CISAS under the assessment criteria set out under the Act. We consider that the consumer research and case review, alongside information we have collected directly from the schemes, demonstrates they are working well and continue to meet the statutory assessment criteria.
While not a condition of re-approval, there are improvements we propose the schemes should implement. The schemes should introduce an improved review process to monitor the quality of decision letters to ensure they remain at a high standard. The schemes should provide more information on the ADR process on their websites, with appropriate guidance on the levels of compensation that would be appropriate to request to support consumers when they are submitting a claim.
Ofcom’s oversight of the schemes
Ofcom monitors the schemes’ operational performance primarily through a set of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) we set for the schemes, which we publish on our website on a quarterly basis. Setting effective KPIs helps build consumer confidence in the ADR process. Our assessment of the evidence suggests that, while the KPIs broadly cover the right areas, some of the KPIs are not set at the right level. Therefore, we propose to increase the targets while keeping them within the bounds of current performance. This will allow us to focus in more detail on performance and identify potential problems should they arise. It should also help the schemes to focus their resources most effectively on the areas that require improvement.
In terms of the KPIs mentioned above, Ofcom currently imposes the following KPIs on ADR providers:
• more than 80% of calls to be answered in less than two minutes;
• more than 90% of calls to be answered in less than five minutes;
• 100% of written correspondence to be replied to within ten days;
• more than 90% of case decisions to be issued within six weeks of the case being accepted; and
• less than 1% of case decisions to be issued later than eight weeks after the case has been accepted.
The regulator is now proposing to tweak these a bit. For example, they’ve proposed increasing the percentage of case decisions to be issued within 6 weeks to 95% to bring it more in line with the schemes’ performance in this area and their planned change to the timescale. But they’d maintain some of the other areas, like the “less than 1%” rule above. The finer details of all the KPIs are still subject to feedback and thus further change.
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The consultation on these changes will run until 12th March 2025 and Ofcom then expects to publish their final decision during Summer 2025.
UPDATE 16th Jan 2025 @ 12:16pm
We have received a comment from the ‘Communications Ombudsman’.
Ed Dodman, Chief Ombudsman for Communications, said:
“This proposal is good news for consumers. Providing quicker access to an Alternative Dispute Resolution service represents a significant step forward in empowering consumers and enhancing trust in the communications sector.
Ofcom’s re-approval reinforces our ongoing commitment to delivering an independent, impartial service that builds trust between consumers and providers. We’ll continue to look at ways for consumers to access our service as timely and as seamlessly as possible.”
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Sounds like a consumer focused change. Good in my opinion. Useless to wait if customer service doesn’t reply for weeks.
Except that when these “eight weeks” rules were first mooted, we lived in an era of paper based correspondence. The overwhelming majority of complaints and correspondence is electronic, and if companies can resolve 79% of complaints in a week, why give them a further five weeks? Ofcom should have put the bar at four weeks. But Ofcom being a hapless and weak regulator is nothing new – look at the mess they made of rules on in-contract price rises.
About time Ofcom stepped in and put an end to this company called Plan.com and their shocking sales tactics.
They’re based in the Isle of Man, have been cold call people pretending to be their current mobile provider, offering to cut their bills but instead they transfer your number to their system, lock you into an expensive 3 year business contract with no cooling off period, that costs hundreds of pounds to get out of.
Even the BBC radio You and Yours programme did a report on them last year, but they’re still at it.
I was looking at Plan.com reviews on Trustpilot. There’s plenty of positive 5 star reviews but when you look closer you can see many of these glowing reviews use very similar wording and are left by people who have only ever posted one review.
Hmmm, I smell a rat.
30-15 years ago when working in global IT service delivery I could just imaging saying to the users ‘go and raise a complaint on the SLAs and we’ll get back to you and allow you to escallate to someone else with some more paperwork, in oh, ~8weeks, oh and then there’ll be another few weeks after which you may be able to raise soem more paperwork and then complain to those that stipulate the SLAs’.
You might have though as time has passed, well a decade or 2, that things might have speeded up, considerably, or even the SLA regulator cut out the middle men / bureaucracy and actually nip SLA issues in the bud!
But hey, no we have Ofcom, which costs ‘telecoms’ how much?