The Ofcom Consumer Panel has just submitted its response to Ofcom’s Annual plan 2007/08. The full document is here. The Panel’s primary aim in this document is to highlight problematical areas of access and inclusion across the sector and issue a blunt challenge to Ofcom in the form of a question:

‘[W]hat work — other than research — will be done by Ofcom’?

The Consumer Panel then sets forth a few key areas where it believes Ofcom should focus, such as internet access:

“The most recent data available shows that 39% of adults in the UK do not have access to the internet at home and in the last three years this figure has only grown by 4 %. Households with poorer or older citizens are especially likely not to be connected. While broadband growth has been impressive, the latest OECD statistics reveal that the UK only has the 13th best achievement in terms of number of broadband users per 100 inhabitants.”

And the Panel concludes with an overall mission for Ofcom:

“In particular, we want to know more about what work will be done by Ofcom “to promote access and inclusion”, what are “those services” that Ofcom expects the market to deliver, just how available and accessible should these services be, just what level of take-up of these services would be regarded as ’success’, and what exactly Ofcom intends to do to further its declared “important role in facilitating increased access and inclusion”.”