Nick Stace - Which? campaigns director

Question: What areas does Which? campaign in and why?

Nick Stace: Which? exists to make the individual as powerful as the institutions they come up against in their daily lives. We are the largest consumer organisation in Europe and are entirely independent of government and industry.

Because our opinions are based solely on in-depth scrutiny and research, people can trust us to help them make confident choices.

When we prioritise our campaigns we analyse how many consumers are affected by a problem and how badly. Sometimes the problem affects millions of people, for example endowment mortgage mis-selling. Others issues may not affect so many people but may have a greater impact on individuals, for example through loss of money.

We keep in touch with what consumers think through research, our members, the internet and our customer service centre. We are constantly assessing emerging issues to develop future campaigns.

We have three main campaign areas: food, health, personal finance plus we work on a couple of important specific issues; reform of legal services and estate agents.

Our research has shown these are the key issues consumers care about and where Which? can make a difference.

Question: Are there any principles that cut across all consumer issues?

Nick Stace: There are eight consumer principles we work with to help us make sure we are tackling the issues that matter.

These are access, choice, consumer influence and representation, quality, information and education, redress, safety and value for money.

We should really be able to say all of these are true in any market – for example, everyone should have access to quality, value-for-money products and services and be able to make an informed choice about which one is best for them.

Obviously you would expect them to be safe – whether that’s in terms of health and safety or the risk consumers face, for example, with financial products. But they should also have universal access to proper redress when things go wrong – a key element missing in estate agency.

Question: How is Which? funded?

Nick Stace: Which? is funded entirely from consumer subscriptions and purchases of our products. We don't get any public funding and don't accept money from businesses or other sources, including advertising and sponsorship.

Question: Do you get involved in international consumer campaigns?

Nick Stace: Which? was instrumental in setting up Consumers International and we still work closely with them. We also work with BEUC, the EU voice of consumers, which has over 40 members from across Europe. The EU has a very strong influence on what happens in the UK, for example, much of the legislation governing food is set at EU level, so it’s important we work with partners there to make sure the consumer voice is heard.

Question: Do you have different campaigns in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?

Nick Stace: Many of our campaigns are UK-wide, but there are some differences.

In Scotland, in the area of food, we are campaigning to improve nutrition for children, and for action to end the promotion of unhealthy food to children. We also want to see the publication of hygiene scores for food premises.

In other areas, we are campaigning for better access to NHS dentists, an increase in the small claims limit from £750 to £5,000 so consumers can seek redress for poor goods and services, an independent Legal Services Commission, and sellers' packs to give more information to homebuyers and stop multiple surveys.

In Northern Ireland, we were responsible for getting Northern Ireland banks referred to the Competition Commission and are hoping this will lead to significant improvements for consumers there.

In Wales, we support the Welsh assembly's proposals to improve nutrition standards for food in schools but we’re also calling on them to do more to tackle the promotion of unhealthy foods to children.

Question: How do you test all those different products and services?

Nick Stace: We want to help customers by doing the hard work for them: testing products and services, and finding out what others think of them. We use a wide range of methods and cover an enormous number of subjects. Every year we spend £6m on this research.

We are particularly well known for our traditional product testing.

And we look at every product from quite a lot of angles to inform our best buy criteria – for example with a washing machine we don’t just look at how clean the clothes get but how much water is used, how easy the programmes are to work out and how long it takes to go through a cycle.

We also do a lot of "situation testing" – also called mystery shopping.

We used this a lot in our Move It campaign to regulate estate agents, getting our researchers to put their houses up for sale and sending round others to pose as buyers to find out what was really happening on the ground.

We're also avid food shoppers, scouring the supermarket shelves to check labels for their clarity and accuracy as well as comparing fat, sugar and salt levels.

Recently we compared 275 different breakfast cereals to see which had the most fat, sugar and salt.

Question: Thinking about your food campaign, what are the key issues at the moment?

Nick Stace: Consumers in their thousands are telling us very clearly they want to see an end to the promotion of unhealthy foods to children.

We've been inundated with messages of support via our website at www.which.co.uk/kidsfood

Our research has highlighted over 40 different ways in which food high in fat, sugar and salt is promoted to children, in many instances without their parents’ knowledge.

We've been calling for action by Ofcom to address irresponsible advertising by introducing a 9.00pm watershed to prevent adverts for foods high in fat, sugar and salt from being shown when children are watching TV in large numbers.

We're also members of a government-led group looking at taking action in other areas of marketing eg. websites, sponsorship and text messaging.

We're also leading on work to help consumers make more informed choices about the food they eat. Our research has shown that the Food Standards Agency's traffic light front of pack labelling scheme offers the most help for people who want to choose healthier options.

We're also backing initiatives in Scotland, the Midlands and London to provide detailed information about the hygiene inspection reports of local restaurants and other food outlets.

This includes the score being displayed on the premises along with information on the web. Such schemes have been given a clear green light with 97 per cent wanting to know this information.

Ensuring consumer choice between GM, non-GM and organic food is also on our radar.

The government's consultation on national co-existence measures is proposing a system which we feel could undermine this ability to choose.

Question: What are you working on in health at the moment?

Nick Stace: Making sure that every day health care works for consumers is our big priority. Practically this is about ensuring people know what services are on offer and importantly can access them. For example, we think that good oral health is essential, not a lifestyle choice, but people have told us how they can’t access an NHS dentist in their area.

Another area that needs some attention is out-of-hours care. 14 million people seek out-of-hours care, but our recent research highlights that many people don’t know where to turn for help.

NHS Direct, while a really good idea in principle, is not working in the way it needs to. We’ve called for a three digit number to replace the current number for NHS Direct to make the service more memorable for people.

Question: What does your personal finance campaign cover?

Nick Stace: Which? has a long history of significant success and high profile campaigning in personal finance.

We dedicate considerable resources to this area as we believe that consumers really need Which? to intervene in here - it is particularly complex market with very powerful providers and relatively weak consumers. It's also a dysfunctional market where real competition as we experience it in other markets, simply does not exist.

Our key campaigns involve putting consumers at the heart of financial services, improving long-term savings and protection insurance markets and campaigning for fair and competitive credit and banking markets.

In particular, in March 2006, Which? issued all current account providers with an Asbo (Anti-social banking order) for the way they charge customers for straying into unauthorised overdrafts.

We are not campaigning for the abolition of default charges, we are campaigning for these charges to be lawful and proportionate to the cost of administering them.

Which? is running a campaign to ensure all consumers get a fair deal, meaning charges remain within the law. We believe it is part of our role to make consumers aware their rights of redress. And we have set up a website with information on how to challenge these charges.

On another issue, Which? believes that a simple National Pensions Saving Scheme (NPSS), as recommended by the Pensions Commission, is the key to averting a long-term pensions crisis.

Question: And why is reforming legal services and estate agency so important to you?

Nick Stace: For years consumers have told us of their poor experiences of using solicitors and estate agents, so these were key areas for us to get sorted out.

Everyone probably needs to use a solicitor at some time, but they have a poor reputation and our research over the years has consistently shown why.

People say they don't think they are getting a good service or value for money. Many say their solicitor did not listen to their opinion or they weren't given any indication as to how much their case would cost.

Worse, most think there is no point in trying to complain as solicitors simply "close ranks" or even bully consumers into submission.

After years of campaigning for reform, the government finally published a draft legal services bill which will take complaints handling away from the professions and set up a new, independent Office for Legal Complaints to ensure consumers can get proper redress.

It will also set up an independent Legal Services Board to oversee the regulation of the professions – about time when self-regulation clearly hasn’t worked in the interests of consumers!

There are also proposals to open up the market to competition, which will in future give consumers more choice and better value for money.

I think everyone has a dodgy estate agent story, and our research has shown why. Buying a home is probably the biggest purchase any of us make, yet you have little protection at the moment when things go wrong, which unfortunately they do far too often. We want to see a much more robust regulatory system, with a compulsory ombudsman for estate agents able to investigate people's complaints properly and provide adequate redress.

The government has agreed with us and we're hopeful we will soon see regulation to this effect.

But in other areas, it's not going so smoothly. We recently withdrew our support for Home Information Packs because the government announced the Home Condition Report (the survey section of the HIP) would not be compulsory.

But we think this is an essential part of HIPs, and that without it the pack an expensive waste of time for consumers.

Question: Do you think regulation is always the best way to protect consumers?

Nick Stace: Not necessarily. We want to see regulation where markets aren't working in the interests of consumers and where voluntary regulation has failed.

This is true of both the estate agency and legal services industries, where the professions have really rather protected themselves and not operated in the interests of consumers – for example, inadequate redress arrangements and poor competition.

In both cases, consumers also lack the information and education to know what’s good and what isn’t, so they need protection from the rogues.

But we also know that the costs of regulation are borne by consumers, so we don't see it as the solution to everything.

For example, we support voluntary action on marketing of junk food to children but if this doesn't work then we want to see legislation.

The key is to get smarter regulation, not just regulate everything. That way, everybody wins.