The consumer body is one of those to be axed in Francis Maude’s so-called “bonfire of the quangos”. Its functions will largely be transferred to the Citizens Advice charity. Consumer Focus Wales will continue to operate until at least April 2012. However, Edward Davey, the minister responsible for consumer affairs, has indicated that he is willing to consider arrangements for consumers in Scotland and Wales which are different from those in England.

There is a feeling among us Liberal Democrats that too many sinecures have been created in the last dozen years for friends of Labour, both locally and nationally, in quangoes and agencies.  However, that is clearly not true of Mike O’Connor, chief executive of Consumer Focus.  At present, his organisation has legal powers to request commercially sensitive information from companies in order to bring claims on behalf of consumers, and he has not hesitated to us use it. “We have a vital power, we can make companies and regulators and government give us information so [any other organisation] may be asking people to do things but without the power to achieve it,” he said on Radio 4’s “Moneybox” last autumn. Government may not feel it is appropriate for a charity like the CAB to have this power, but I don’t see why trading standards departments and/or a committee of the Welsh Assembly should not.

Anyway, Consumer Focus Wales has published its draft workplan for 2011-12 on which it invites comments.

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