"With a Conservative government, Ofcom as we know it will cease to exist. Its remit will be restricted to its narrow technical and enforcement roles. It will no longer play a role in making policy. And the policy-making functions it has today will be transferred back fully to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport."
Bringing this from an Ofcom spokesman
"As Ofcom is itself a product of regulatory rationalisation – merging five regulators into one – we are surprised at being highlighted.... Since its establishment, Ofcom has delivered five consecutive years of real terms budget reductions, reduced headcount by more than 300 people and saved more than £117m in the process – a 21% reduction. Ofcom has always been very clear that we provide analysis and recommendations in line with our duties set by parliament but that outside specified areas, such as economic regulation and competition law, policy and decision making is a matter for the government of the day".
Suspect this'll cause some scratching of heads inside the BBC, where some privately hope that the Trust, increasingly difficult to manage, will be an early victim of a Tory regime, with many of its activities duplicated by Ofcom. Ofcom's operating budget for 2009/10 is £136.8m. In 2008, the BBC Trust's running costs were put at £11.9m. It's now impossible to assess the internal cost of the BBC's own complaints and compliance operation which responds to both the Trust and Ofcom.
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