Tenants have always tended to be left in the cold when it comes to decisions on housing, so it is particularly welcome to see the new draft Code on Service and Accountability drawn up for the National Housing Federation in England. The final code will be published in January – you can comment to neighbourhoods@housing.org.uk
The idea of a code was something we floated in the report What Tenants Want.
Leah and Jane pointed me to this - for when the economy or the PCs crash!
Peter Gibson, Director of the Scottish Consumer Council for thirteen years, was a power for good in his life. 
Now, a memorial fund has been set up in his name, which offers travel grants to people who want to look at issues abroad and come home to turn that to the benefit of Scottish consumers. If you want to go places, the application form is here
The word I most remember from my childhood is the word “reasonable”. Applied to everything from the weather to my behaviour, this was my father’s favourite and most frequently used word.
It is one of the two words – along with practical – that now matter to the five million or so people now in fuel poverty. I met Andy Atkins (days into his new 
job as Executive Director at Friends of the Earth) and Mervyn Kohler (Help the Aged) outside the High Court as they launched their judicial review of the government’s fuel poverty strategy earlier this week (along with Mary – in the photo). Their legal challenge rests on the Warm Homes and Energy Conservation Act 2000. Section 2 (1) of the Act creates a duty on the government to prepare and publish a fuel poverty strategy. That strategy was first published in Nov 2001. Two target dates were set – 2016 to end fuel poverty and 2010 to end fuel poverty in vulnerable households. But both have the proviso where ‘reasonably practicable’ .
Those two words are at the centre of the case.
The government has contested that it is not reasonably practicable to do anything beyond what it has already done given government spending priorities and departmental budgets. Andy and Mervyn say that this is the wrong way round. There is a duty to end fuel poverty and funding should be made available to allow that to happen.
The judgement is not expected for four to five weeks. Will the government be obliged to do far more? It will also be one of two words – yes or no.
With all the support that banks can now count on for recapitalisation and access to funding, it is worth asking: why is the Lloyds TSB / Halifax Bank of Scotland merger going ahead? Our money as consumers is safe whatever. Sure, it is a good opportunity for Lloyds but, at first glance, having such an overwhelming giant in the current account and mortgage market is surely not good for consumers and a competitive market. The lesson of the last decade is that it is extraordinarily hard for new banks to emerge and take significant market share – even though satisfaction with the service the incumbents offer, with the exception of the internet banks, is rarely high. Is it now in the national interest to suspend competition law and perhaps create a bigger rod for our own backs?
On the sofa for BBC Breakfast News this morning, as Ofgem announced the results of its probe into energy markets. 210 pages long, so there was a team of us starting the working day at 7am, reading, comparing notes and drawing conclusions. The regulator probably feels it has got the political balance right – clean bill of health for the overall market coupled with an expose on the way that some customers lose out (Don’t be loyal – companies will charge you extra for your faith in them). It could be that they have it precisely the wrong way round though – the dodgy stuff is simply what you can get away with when the market is not working as competitively as it ought to.
What is interesting though is what a document like this says about how it was put together. The body of the analysis is classic Regulator In Charge – life is complex but luckily we are clever and don’t worry about things. The summary, with only an elastic relationship with the body of the text, is suddenly energetic, concerned and action-oriented. And only when we get to the Appendices, do we start to hear some straight talking – that “it is common for energy companies [with small business customers] to: win business through dubious sales practices; keep customers through one-sided contracts, with verbal contracts a particular source of confusion; exploit the passivity of customers and the fact they have other priorities, and; appear to make very little effort to retain customers through quality of service.” Ouch.
We have eight weeks of consultation now to get to grips with which of these interpretations of the energy market is actually what they mean.
I wrote the section on parents in a new report out today by the National Council on Educational Excellence (NCEE). Parents and children are consumers of education but it has taken a long time to recognise that involving them works well in terms of educational outcomes.
The recommendations go direct to the Department for Children, Schools and Families, but with a fair wind.
Gordon Brown commented today that “The members of the NCEE have already changed the world in their chosen careers. The recommendations in this report will help us to achieve our goal of achieving world class standards of education in our country. We must now work together to make sure that they are fully implemented so that the benefits are felt by all.”
Thanks to everyone for all the goodwill and good wishes for the new organisation. I have travelled over the first three days to be with the staff teams in our offices in Bournemouth, Glasgow, Cardiff, Belfast and London and have come back inspired and hopeful for what we can achieve. Lots of media coverage on air, which is nice and gets us off well – we are the “superwatchdog” according to Radio 5 and the Daily Mail.
Rhys “where’s my blackberry” Evans dubbed me the Phil Collins of the consumer world for my whirlwind tour – I take it this was not just a comment about my rhythm and hairline.
When my kids heard that today, October 1st was the go live date for Consumer Focus, they replied “well, that’s a big day – its the same date that series 3 of Heroes starts on TV!”
Well, the new consumer heroes start today too. Good luck to us.
