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| Path: Home > Advocacy > OFCOM > Citizenship |
Citizenship is about more than just Consumption
A response to the consultation on Ofcom’s annual plan 2004-2005 from the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education
Published: March 2004
Introduction
The National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) welcomes the opportunity to comment on Ofcom’s annual plan. NIACE is a registered charity (No. 1002775) and its broad aim is to advance the interests of adults as learners and as potential learners. Our strategic plan commits us to “support an increase in the total numbers of adults engaged in formal and informal learning in England and Wales; and at the same time to take positive action to improve opportunities and widen access to learning opportunities for those communities underrepresented in current provision”. A central role for NIACE is to lobby and act as advocate on behalf of adult learning and learners in all areas of public policy that impact on its work. Since the mass media, especially broadcast media, play a powerful role in both formal and informal adult learning, NIACE has long sought to contribute to debate with both the BBC and independent broadcasters and with their regulators.
In addition to its individual members, NIACE has more than 400 corporate members drawn from all local authorities, from community education services, FE colleges, universities, voluntary organisations and trade unions. Our membership also includes the Prison Service and Ministry of Defence although our closest links with government are through the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) and the Welsh Office.
Conflating the notions of "Citizens” and “Consumers”
NIACE’s primary concern with the plan is that it seeks to conflate the notions of “citizens” and “consumers” (page 2 and throughout). It appears to us that this ignores the separation that was embodied in the Act in Clauses 3(1)A and 3(1)B and in the setting up of the quite separate structures of the Consumer Panel and the Content Board with their quite separate duties. This distinction was made repeatedly and explicitly during the parliamentary passage of the Communications Act. In the words of the then Minister Baroness Blackstone, quoted below, a clear distinction is made between the two, along with a recognition that not only are they not synonymous, but also that they are not necessarily compatible (see text in bold).
We urge OFCOM to withdraw the annual plan as currently drafted and address the distinction in a revised document. Failing to do so flies in the face of the intentions of Government, and the wording of the Act. It also offers significant opportunities for confusion and public misunderstanding.
| Baroness Blackstone: “The quality and depth of the debate on Ofcom's general duties is a strong indication of their importance to Ofcom, its stakeholders and, of course, the public. The Government have therefore continued to look at the duties to ensure that they are right, and that they give a clear direction to Ofcom and some certainty to its stakeholders. The Government do not accept that what we have ended up with is ambiguous in the way implied by some speakers. The clause looks different from the one published in draft last year. We have worked very hard to take on board concerns that its drafting did not fully reflect our policy intentions. We have listened and responded. I tell my noble friend Lord Puttnam that that is why we have changed the clause. The Bill in its totality delivers for both consumers and citizens. It reflects our view that the market does not always deliver in the public interest. That has been the underlying position taken by most speakers in the debate. We of course accept it, and the Bill as currently drafted reflects that there are circumstances in which consumer interests are outweighed by the interests of the wider community. We wanted to be sure that the general duties reflected that more fully, so that Ofcom would be able to make decisions for consumers and for citizens, and would not be open to challenge if, in any particular case, it decided that the interests of people as citizens outweighed those of people as consumers. Clause 3(1) puts that policy intent into legal drafting. Although my noble friend Lord Alli raised the spectre of judicial review, I am not sure of the legal basis for his argument.” |
The distinction is not simply a matter of semantics. NIACE attaches a copy of its own journal Adults Learning (volume 15, number 4, December 2003)(Cover headline “Citizen or Consumer?”). NIACE endorses the broad argument made by the author of the article “Putting politics back into citizenship” on pages 7-9. Citizenship is a political category while “consumer” is an economic category. Broadcasting, as the parliamentary debates on the Act showed, is not simply a good to be produced and consumed as a vehicle for cultural transmission in a pluralist democracy and the virtual absence of this dimension from the OFCOM annual plan is a serious weakness.
NIACE would be pleased to supply further information on this matter on request. Please contact Alan Tuckett (Director) or Alastair Thomson (Senior Policy Officer) in the first instance.
NIACE
20 Princess Road West
Leicester
LE1 6TP
www.niace.org.uk
| Further details of the consultation on OFCOM's annual plan can be found on their website at http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consultations/current/annual_plan/?a=87101 |
