What can you buy for 2 million quid?

Silent calls are back in the news with what used to be the DTI (morphing through BERR to it's current name "The Department of Business, Inovation and Skills" - come back Prince, all is forgiven...) publishing plans to increase the maximum level of fines from the current £50k to a maximum of 2 million pounds. (Click here for press release).

If you can cast your mind back to last year's action against Barclaycard, Ofcom's chief Ed Richards said at the time "Had we not been limited by the statutory maximum, we would have imposed a larger financial penalty to reflect this misuse". Well, it looks like he may get it.

The plans to consult on the level of fines were set out in the controversial "Digital Britain" report published last June where I for one completely failed to notice the text in paragraph 50 on page 200 saying:

"A further growing area of concern for the Government is the disparity between the various penalties that Ofcom can impose under the Communications Act 2003 in relation to actions causing consumer harm. For example, where Ofcom has found breaches of the Broadcasting Code regarding phone-in scandals and the consumer harm they caused, it has been able to impose fines of well over £1m. Conversely, where Ofcom has found serious breaches of its rules on persistent misuse of a network or service, in particular in relation to extremely high numbers of silent calls (where the people receiving the calls had no method of knowing who had made them, with the resulting consumer harm), the statutory ceiling as currently set only allows Ofcom to fine up to £50,000. It seems to the Government that the discrepancy between these levels of fine is no longer sustainable or desirable. The Government will therefore consult on the penalties that Ofcom is able to impose for contraventions of the Communications Act 2003 and, in particular, the level of the fine it can impose in relation to persistent misuse cases."

(Download full report here (PDF))

So what does this mean?

It has long been argued that the level of the fine has not been the deterrent so much as the reputational damage to your brand. That's why Ofcom have always made it clear they'll go after the originating brand, rather than any outsourced contact centre that happens to actually make the calls. Loosing a bank only £50k in the last year would probably not have registed on the level of petty cash, given what's been going on, but £2m is enough to make even the most profilgate of spenders stop and think.

So, if the threat of 2 million quid fine is enough to sharpen most organisations' focus on managing their dialler properly, what will and what should happen? Well for my tuppenceworth:

(1) Answer Machine Detection (AMD) - we need to get heads out of sand on this one. AMD causes silent calls (fact). Silent calls cause nuisance and anxiety (fact). I'm sorry, but I don't understand why this is still being debated.

(2) Some further clarification on calculating silent call rates when AMD is and isn't being used would be helpful. The DMA has put together some excellent work on this (which I've been a part) and it would be helpful to have that endorsed.

(3) Everybody with an interest in this field should respond to the consultation. My response will be that I will welcome the increased level of fines but call for the publication of the AMD research carried out by Ofcom earlier in the year, and ask that Ofcom confirm publically and in print those clarifications on the silent calls calculations that they've made in public meetings organised by the TPS and others.

Meanwhile I'm wondering, what would I do with £2,000,000?