Whether it’s UK or European regulators, and whether it’s about farming or finance or phones, time and again we hear complaints from folk who feel imposed upon; that things are being done to them rather than for them.

Just in this last week we’ve had butchers grinding their teeth about ground beef regulations that will threaten the flavour of mince. UK butchers, apparently, prefer the well hung.   The butchers seem intent on blaming Brussels; that’s far easier than asking why no-one in the UK knew enough about our local market to spot the flaw tucked away on page 33 of the regulations created 2 years ago.

Then we’ve had money-box live-wires getting heated about tax changes that were announced a year ago.  And now we have yet more evidence that the UK is resisting European telecoms regulation on the grounds that Ofcom is closer to the consumer whereas most informed observers think that the redoubtable EU commissioner, Ms Reding, speaks more sense with more insight than umpteen armies of national regulators and their industry games players.

The problem is that all this regulatory stuff is very complicated and, with a few exceptions, way beyond the will-power for those of us with businesses to be getting on with.  So it’s not surprising that we feel short-changed when changes fall short of expectations.

Contrary to Ofcom’s repeated declarations, their concern for ‘consumers’ does not oft-extend to the needs of businesses – unless, of course, those businesses happen to be Telco’s.   The CMA represents the communications management interests of UK businesses; the Association’s membership spends more than £13bn every year buying this stuff.  Our members’ ability to buy what’s needed to deliver goods and services in the UK and internationally provides a far sharper view of ‘market failure’ than any amount of debate over whether consumers may one day need 30, 50 or 100 IPTV channels.

The work therefore of the CMA’s regulatory college under the leadership of David Harrington is hugely important;  no-one would be well served if the UK was, well, hung up.   And it is also important that a wide range of business enterprises are aware of, and contribute to, the work of keeping an eye on the regulators of this parish; reminding them that their charter does not give them carte blanche to ignore the UK's wealth creators.

With this in mind David Harrington has written a handy primer for those enterprises who can be encouraged to give just a little time to understanding current issues and, possibly, provide some informed inputs into these debates.  His paper is downloadable in PDF format here and is also available on the CMA’s website.

Go figure – or be forever disconnected.

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The Communications Management Association's regulatory guide 'The Enterprise User and Regulation' (April 2008) was written by David Harrington.

The introduction above was prepared by Groupe Intellex.