Ofcom today published its Tariff Tables setting out by sector the regulatory fees due across telecommunications, broadcasting and radiospectrum for the financial year to 31 March 2006. No doubt the industry will be taking a close look at the figures. And consumers should also take a close look since the fees have to come out of someone’s pocket.

Ofcom�s Operating Budget for 2005/06 is �133 million. Ofcom rightly point out that this is 5 per cent lower than the 2004/05 budget (8 per cent lower in real terms compared with the 2004/05 Operating Budget plus RPI). So far, so good with progress on decreasing costs and Ofcom have pledged to make savings of 5% over the coming year also - however I suspect real terms savings will get more difficult year on year.

However, for the moment, there are some impressive top line figures highlighted by Ofcom in the tariff document. They say regulatory fees:

Will reduce by an average of 26 per cent for television licensees, a total cost reduction to the industry of �8.5 million in real terms

Will reduce by an average of 8 per cent for networks and services operators a total cost reduction to the industry of �2.0 million in real terms

It is also interesting to see the percentage planned costs by sector 2005/06:

Spectrum Management - 54%
Television Broadcasting - 21%
Networks and Services - 17%
Other - 5% (’Other’ is a rather non-specific category for �6.65 million of costs)
Radio Broadcasting - 3% (radio broadcasters must be thrilled they fall below ‘Other’)

In addition, there are some other interesting little factoids in the document. For example:

Want to renew your national radio licence? - That will set you back �100,000 (non-refundable)
Got a shopping channel? - Well there’s an annual ‘tariff’ of �2000

Anyway - you get the idea - it’s worth having a flick through the document to spot these little points of interest. There’s whole industry of administrative charges, amendment fees, and application fees (non-refundable). Also, although Ofcom haven’t named names you start to get an idea of how much the big boys are paying out in fees - i.e. alot of money.

Comment: Of course, fees only ever make up part of the regulatory cost for business. There are also the costs of compliance and the costs of responding to consultations - and again these costs are passed down the line to consumers through the price structure. It would be interesting to assess the year on year reduction in Ofcom’s fees against the level compliance and response costs (which I suspect has increased since December 2003). If fees are falling whilst costs are rising there may actually be no real terms decrease in the cost of regulation.