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Creating Confident Consumers
The Role of the Ministry of Consumer Affairs in a
Dynamic Modern Economy
May 2003
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3. Putting
the Ministry of Consumer Affairs in Context
Institutional Arrangements
In considering the role of the Ministry, it is informative to
review the Ministry's institutional arrangements and their
implications for the Ministry's role.
The Ministry is an operating branch of
MED.
Historically, the Ministry has always been part of a larger
department that is focused on broader commercial and economic
issues. [2]
This kind of arrangement is not unusual. Many
OECD, Commonwealth, and European governments have located
their consumer policy agencies within larger organisations,
usually with a focus on commercial or economic interests and, in
particular, on competition policy. For instance, Australia's
national consumer policy agency is housed within the Commonwealth
Treasury. Similarly, consumer policy is located within ministries
responsible for business and/or economy in Denmark, Canada, the
United Kingdom, and France.
[3]
MED is
focused on the Government's economic development strategy. Both
the 1996 letter of relationship between the Ministry of Commerce
(as it was then) and the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, and the
subsequent more detailed Delegation by the Chief Executive of
MED to the
General Manager of Consumer Affairs, have clarified that the
Ministry has a role to play with respect to economic policy and
economic development. This appears to have been a response to
tensions that have arisen from time to time, when it has been
perceived that consumer policy pulled in a different direction
from broader economic policies.
The Delegation sets out the institutional arrangements that
align the Ministry much more closely with
MED than
has been the case in the past. Interviews with members of
MED's
Strategic Leadership Team (SLT)
indicated a desire for a "common philosophy" between
MED and the
Ministry. They noted that while this has not yet been achieved,
there is now a much greater understanding between
MED and the
Ministry. The Ministry contributes to
MED's
economic objectives, and
MED relies
on the Ministry to bring a consumer perspective to the table.
Also part of the Ministry's institutional structure is the
Energy Safety Service (ESS),
which is accountable through the Chief Executive of
MED to the
Minister of Energy.
The establishment of ESS
in December 1999 followed a review of energy functions in the
then Ministry of Commerce. Its placement in the Ministry of
Consumer Affairs was prompted by the synergies between energy
safety and the Ministry's functions, particularly in relation to
trade measurement and consumer safety.
The move to the Ministry was also intended to address concerns
about over-fragmentation in the way that safety and measurement
issues were being dealt with across government agencies.
Apart from its specifically consumer-oriented activities,
ESS performs important
functions related to public safety and safety in the workplace.
Responsibility for workplace safety is to be shifted to the
Occupational Safety and Health Service through the Energy Safety
Review Bill, currently being drafted for introduction to
Parliament. However, to avoid further fragmentation of
responsibility for safety issues across government agencies,
ESS will retain
responsibility for public safety.
For further details on the development of the Ministry's
institutional arrangements, see the Review background paper
The Establishment and Development of the Ministry of Consumer
Affairs.
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