Jersey Consumer Council: Annual Report for 2015.

STATES OF JERSEY

JERSEY CONSUMER COUNCIL: ANNUAL REPORT FOR 2015

Presented to the States on 21st June 2016

by the Minister for Economic Development, Tourism, Sport and Culture

STATES GREFFE

2016  R.68

2

REPORT

In 2010 the States adopted Proposition P.182/2010, which prescribed a new mandate for the Jersey Consumer Council (JCC). One requirement of the new mandate was that the JCC be set up as an independent legal entity. This was achieved when the States adopted P.89/2011, which led to registration in the Royal Court as an Incorporated Association under the Loi (1862) sur les teneures en fidéicommis et l'incorporation d'Associations.

Under the Association Rules and Constitution, the JCC is required to prepare an annual report and forward it to the Minister for presentation to the States. The report for 2015 has now been provided to the Minister.

R.68/2016

Annual Report 2015

Our role is to be the consumers' champion; we investigate and publicise anomalies in consumer affairs and provide Islanders with accurate and timely information to help them make informed decisions

Making the consumer voice heard and making it count

Contents

Membership and Meetings   3 2015 JCC Notable Successes   4 Chairman's Statement  5 Main Issues 2015  8 Financial Report  19

Memberships & Meetings

The Jersey Consumer Council held 4 meetings in 2015. Membership of the Jersey Consumer Council

• Advocate Rose Colley – Chairman
• Advocate Jean-Marie Renouf
• Mr Peter Tompkins
• Mr Tim De Gruchy
• Mrs Donna Le Marrec
• Mrs Daphne East
• Miss Francesca Rotheram
• Mr James Rondel
• Mr Derek Ferguson

Notable 2015 Successes

Our role is to be the consumers' champion; we investigate and publicise anomalies in consumer affairs and provide Islanders with accurate and timely information to help them make informed decisions

• We appointed six new members following the change to our constitution
• Researched and published our Rents Matters Report detailing our qualitative insight into the rental journey; highlighting key recommendations and action points
• Published 7 newsletters
• Enhanced Fuel Watch to allow the consumer to track price trends of both oil and road fuel
• We have, with the help of expert volunteers, hosted a series of #free lunchtime seminars on a broad range of topics – for example Wills, Money, Probate, and Property
• The Consumer Council presented the work of the Council and discussed how to

be a savvy consumer with over 750 Jersey secondary school students

• Raised our social media profile with over 2,695 followers
• The Council took a snapshot look at how passengers really felt about the service Condor provides – the results were insightful
• We developed TelCoWatch – a one –stop shop website for local telecommunications services.
• The launch of P O Box 500 for SCAM mail. P O Box 500 has empowered the recipients of SCAM letters to deal with them in a constructive and meaningful way

Chairman's Statement  

As my second term of office gets underway the challenges and expectations faced by the Council have increased in complexity and scope.

We have maintained much of our foundation work; talking to several 100 secondary school students across the island on consumer rights and scams. Working with Community Savings Limited we have been able to link consumer rights with budgeting and financial awareness in schools. We remain actively involved with Primary Health Services – to keep the patients voice at the forefront of change. We have gone back to our roots of Price watch – publishing small price checks and comparisons.

The change to the Council's constitution has allowed us to recruit a strong and knowledgeable group of members from diverse backgrounds and with wide ranging consumer interests.

We have continued to meet with business and community leaders in both our Council meetings and as quarterly update meetings with the Executive Officer and myself. These discussions remain an integral part of our work as two-way exchanges of information, consumer experiences and comments.

The Council has further enhanced working relations with Trading Standards, Channel Islands Competition Regulatory Authority (CICRA), the Citizens Advice, the Chamber of Commerce and Community Savings. Following the OXERA report last autumn we are striving to galvanise the relationships via a formal Consumer Protection Partnership' style agreement between CICRA, TS and the Council.

We have worked particularly hard to raise our social media profile – crafting engaging tweets of substance and interest. Facebook also remains an important tool in our communications kit bag. The newsletter receives compliments from a broad range of consumers' both young and old. We understand that communication is of paramount importance to engage with our consumers.

We began hosting #free lunchtime seminars for islanders – affording consumers an opportunity to listen to and question professional across a variety of topics. Initially through the Law Society we called for help and were delighted that 3 companies volunteered their services. We have been delighted to host seminars for in excess of 250 attendees in 2015. The seminars provide the opportunity for consumers to feel at ease talking to the various professions involved. Those who have attended praise us for the initiative and also suggest additional topics, for example Long Term Care. It is additionally gratifying to note that those in attendance heard about the seminars via the newsletters, although we advertise them on social media, the media and eventbrite.

I have continued to use every opportunity to publicise the work of the Council. The local media have continued to recognise that the Council is a key voice on consumer issues.

We are pleased with the launch of TelCoWatch to provide a one-stop transparent price comparisons website for telecommunications services in Jersey. Thanks must go to Digital Jersey Coders for their commitment to the project.

The Council spent weeks listening to the noise' following the introduction of the Condor Liberation and the chain of events, which unfurled as the time passed. We did not want to add to the noise but rather cut through it to find out about customer service and passenger communication. We used the opportunity to ask customers via an online questionnaire to gain an insight into issues that were frustrating passengers. We spoke

with Condor to gauge their views, spoke to the media and encouraged Condor to work with us to solve many of the communication problems identified. The full results are on our website.

The Council is grateful for the day-to-day support of Deputy Murray Norton, Mike King, Trevor Le Roux, Alison de Bourcier and Senator Farnham .

Finally, my greatest thanks are reserved for the Council's Executive Officer, Anne King. Without Anne's enthusiasm and expertise, the Council would not be able to achieve many of its objectives in such an effective way

Advocate Rose Colley

Council Main 2015 Issues

Our role is to be the consumers' champion; we investigate and publicise anomalies in consumer affairs and provide Islanders with accurate and timely information to help them make informed decisions

The twentieth year of our work saw a considerable change in focus and activities; the Council recruited six new members, spoke to over 750 secondary school students, reviewed the tenants rental journey, enhanced Jersey Fuel Watch and developed Jersey TelCoWatch.

The  Consumer  Council liaises with Channel Islands Competition Regulatory Authority (CICRA), Trading Standards, Channel Islands Financial Ombudsman (CIFO), Community Savings and Citizens Advice on a regular and very constructive basis to ensure that we have a joint approach to progressing issues, which have an impact on Jersey consumers.

Communication & Helping Consumers to Make Informed Decisions

The  Council continues to work hard on reaching and engaging Jersey consumers; we published 7 newsletters in 2015. The newsletters are now designed to look even more appealing and locally focussed. They cover a broad range of topics and help to raise awareness of local topical issues.

Our  social  media  presence  has  also  developed  and  we  now  have  in  excess  of  2,600 followers allowing us to spread messages and invite debate.

In  2014  we  joined  forces  with  the  States  of  Jersey  Police,  Jersey  Financial  Sevices Commission, Citizens Advice, Trading Standards and Community Savings to host a few consumer road shows at this time we hoped to develop the consumer road shows concept – we are delighted that part of the discussion about SCAMs helped to form the Jersey Fraud Prevention Forum; the Council plays an active role and initiated the SCAM mail collection mechanism across Jersey. We continue our work with the forum to keep islanders safe as fraud/SCAMs are for ever on the increase and are more insidious and nasty every time.

P O Box 500 is a key resource to helping those islanders receiving SCAM mail; it allows them to send it free of charge to the police for analysis. This has the added benefit of allowing recipients who feel compelled to manage their post correctly that they can send it off rather than open it and be tempted with the offers.

Media

The  Chairman  and  Executive  Officer  regularly  give  interviews  to  BBC  Radio  Jersey  & Spotlight TV, Channel Television, the Jersey Evening Post & Commercial Radio station 103 on a variety of consumer issues generated from within or from outside of the Island.

TelCoWatch  

It became very evident to the Council that consumers were struggling to understand and evaluate the variety of products on offer from our local telecommunications providers.

We worked with the Digital Jersey Coding Programme; the programme was set up to provide training for want-to-be coders' looking to enter the tech industry. The Coders took the Council's brief and designed a fully interactive TelCo Watch website; allowing consumers to compare prices and packages from our local suppliers. Digital Jersey and the Council liaised with the TelCo providers and CICRA to get their support and buy in' to the site.

http://jerseytelcowatch.com

Fuel Watch Jersey

The oil market now has a fourth supplier and the role of Fuel Watch was even more important as it helped to offer consumers a one stop shop for oil prices as well as road fuel prices.

We added in graphs to help consumers to track the trends in prices. The site is very popular providing greater transparency in the market place.

http://www.jerseyfuelwatch.com Rents Matter

We published our report in September 2015 following our research, focus groups and reference to existing reports and media.

The report highlighted the following key findings 1. Costs

1. High monthly rental charges
2. Significant refundable and non-refundable costs incurred all at once when securing a rental home

3. Concerns regarding residential rental stock
   1. Quality of accommodation
   2. Quantity
4. Transparency
   1. Inadequate transparency for both tenants and landlords during the rental journey– in terms of costs, quality, suitability, accuracy and documentation
   2. Property problems, such as damp, and appliance breakdowns are a huge source of tenant concerns ...'where and how do we seek help when our landlords will not help us?'

4. Time pressure

• Most tenants are not able to have a second viewing before signing a lease for accommodation
• Many feel they do not have adequate time to decide before saying yes' to a property because they are worried it will be taken by someone else.

The Council will continue work in this area with the Strategic Housing Unit, Citizens Advice, tenants, landlords and letting agents to develop a rental checklist and to bring about greater transparency in the rental market.

Education

The Council worked with Community Savings to deliver some financial and consumer rights aspects of the Personal Social and Health Education (PSHE) curriculum for children of secondary school age.

In 2015 we delivered a variety of talks to all year groups in Le Rocquier School, years 7 & 10 in Victoria College, year 10 Grainville and year 11 Hautlieu students; with the aim of helping youngsters to understand how important it is for them to be responsible for their own consumer rights and monetary matters.

 All of the sessions given by the Council are interactive and generate interesting discussions.

Seminars

The Council in partnership with expert volunteers has provided a variety of #free lunchtime seminars. We began our seminars following the results of our Money Matters research and the topics have blossomed from here to include talks on Wills, Probate, Property, and Living Wills. In 2015 we had the company of over 200 attendees at our seminars and their popularity continues to grow.

New JCC Website

The Community Jobs Fund accepted our application for a temporary member of staff to  join  the  Council  to  update  our  website.  The  successful  applicant  via  Jersey Employment Trust (JET) began work with us in September for a maximum of 6 months. At no cost to the Council we went back to the drawing board and developed our new look website – due to be launched in spring 2016.

The Council has been able to support the young gentleman to begin to understand the working environment and understanding client liaison. We would recommend the Community Jobs Fund and Jersey Employment Trust to other employers.

Primary Health

The Council continues to be involved with Primary Health issues and liaises with both the Primary Health Care Body and Health & Social Services.

Condor

In light of the noise' regarding Condors service and reliability we undertook a simple self-selecting survey via our Facebook page - We would like to hear your opinions about the ferry services to and from the UK, over the festive period 2015/16. Your personal experiences - from booking to arrival - are important to us and could help to shape and improve the service in future.' We had 739 respondents and where overwhelmed with email comments, letters and telephone calls on the topic.

There had been so much consumer disquiet about the new Condor Liberation, that the Council decided to take a snapshot look at how passengers really felt about the service it provides.

We recognise that it is not possible to do anything about changing the vessel, which has been purchased by Condor, to deliver our Channel Island to UK ferry service. However, we thought it would be helpful to take a positive look at which aspects of the service could be altered and improved, to enhance the experience of crossings for local passengers.

We dipped our toe in the water over the Christmas and New Year period, as so many people would be travelling to and from the UK between our selected dates of 11th December 2015 and 11th January 2016.

We posted our survey online, on our Facebook page and invited people to complete the questionnaire and provide us with feedback about their experiences.

Our main finding was that, of our respondents' journeys, less than 20 per cent of them actually ran on time. According to three quarters of the respondents who completed our survey, Condor did not advise them about the delay - or altered timing - to their sailing. This is clearly leaving passengers feeling frustrated and under-valued, especially after many had to endure some awful travelling experiences.

Over 56% of passengers felt that Condor staff are attentive and 73% of passengers said that they felt that on-board staff were helpful and courteous. This suggests that the problem is not with Condor's frontline customer service staff, but with the delivery systems for necessary and important communications.

We spoke to Condor about our findings and they did say that many passengers do not provide the correct contact details on their booking form and so it is not always physically possible for Condor to notify them of any changes to sailings.

Overall, the difficulty in reaching staff to make alternative arrangements, on being advised that sailings have been delayed or altered, seems to be one of the most overwhelming frustrations among passengers. Many people ended up driving to the terminal, in order to make contact. We have suggested that to overcome this problem, perhaps Condor could look into increasing the number of available phone lines and staff to deal with queries during these periods.

We will be meeting with Condor on a regular basis to follow up on the results and actions.

General Contact

Consumers contact the Council through our website and email us directly from newsletter articles or word of mouth references.

Consultations

We responded to a variety of consultations throughout 2015; ranging from Telecommunications issues, to the Ombudsman's complaints proceedure and we collaborated with the Citizens Advice to provide a comprehensive and considered response to the Property Tax consultation paper

Code of Consumer Lending

We are working with Citizens Advice, Jersey Banking Association, Guernsey Financial Services Commission and Trading Standards to update the Code of Consumer Lending. The work is being undertaken as a Pro Bono project by a local law company; after advertising for help via the Law Societies regular bulletin. We hope to re launch the code in 2016.

Financial Report

The Council's expenses in 2015 were met by a grant of £ 117,000.00 from the Economic Development Department.

Grant Thornton has audited the financial matters of the Council and the audited accounts are attached.