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JT WELCOMES REPORT ON REGULATOR BUT CAUTIONS AGAINST INCREASING COSTS

By JerseyAdmin on Monday, March 30, 2009
Filed Under: Jersey, Science & Technology

Isle News, 30 March 2009 – Jersey Telecom has welcomed the findings of an independent report into the JCRA but has warned against increasing costs for what it calls ‘bread and butter’ regulatory functions.

The report, which was commissioned in 2008 by the then Minister for Economic Development, Senator Philip Ozouf, was produced by UK consultants. It compares telecoms regulation in Jersey with seven other markets, including Guernsey, the UK and Ireland.

Daragh McDermott, JT’s Director of Corporate Affairs, said: “We welcome this report and are pleased to see that it includes a number of recommendations that we have previously called on the JCRA to implement, specifically an increase in transparency and accountability and a clear regard to the costs and benefits associated with the exercise of regulatory functions.”

However, while the company was broadly supportive of the nine recommendations put forward in the report, it expressed concern that a call for increased JCRA resources could lead to an increase in costs to the taxpayer via the licence fee charged to JT.

Mr McDermott added: “The report suggests that additional resources would strengthen the JCRA’s ability to effectively regulate the telecoms sector. However, the report also calls for the JCRA to take a more strategic approach to its planning and to publish more information about its objectives and its results. We believe that this sort of accountability and transparency are bread and butter requirements for a public body and given that JT’s licence fee to the JCRA is already approaching £500,000 a year, we would like to see an improvement to these sorts of basic functions before any additional money is spent on increasing JCRA resources.”

The report states that of a total annual budget of around £1.2m in 2007, salary and staff costs amounted to £781,000. In the same year, about £500,000 was devoted to telecoms regulation, including between £100,000 and £150,000 spent on consultants and external legal advice. The JCRA’s three main sources of funding are licence fees charged to telecommunications operators, licence fees charged to postal operators and a grant from EDD to cover competition activities.

ENDS

For more information, or to arrange an interview with Daragh McDermott, please contact Sally Russell at JT on 882541 or David Vieira at Direct Input on 735253.

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