Transparency in the OFT's work

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We have updated certain pages in this section, to account for changes made to our procedures in cases under the Competition Act 1998 since we published the OFT transparency statement in May 2010, to the extent that these new procedures amend the processes detailed in our transparency statement.

Detailed nformation on the full changes to our procedures in cases under the Competition Act can be found in our Competition Act 1998 Procedures Guidance.

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Data sets

We have published survey and administrative data sets as part of our competition regulation and consumer protection work

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We have published updated transparency data on organisation and staff information.

This data includes:

• Non-consolidated performance related pay information
• Information on senior staff salaries
• Monthly workforce management information
• Information on junior and senior staff numbers and team structure

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Equality review

As a public sector organisation, the OFT is required to consider the requirements of the Equality Act 2010 in our work. See key examples from our first annual review. We will be publishing our priorities for equality in the Autumn.

OFT Annual Report 2010-11

On 12 July 2011 the OFT published its Annual Report for the last financial year alongside an estimate of the financial benefits of its activities to consumers.

• See the Annual Report 2010-11 page
• See press release, OFT publishes Annual Report 2010-11, 12 July 2011

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On 2 March, following a public consultation, the OFT published guidance on its Competition Act 1998 procedures (pdf 844kb).

On 21 March, the OFT commenced a one-year trial of a Procedural Adjudicator role aimed at providing a swift, efficient and cost-effective mechanism for resolving disputes between parties and the case teams in Competition Act 1998 investigations, in respect of certain procedural matters. For more information, see the Procedural Adjudicator Trial page.

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2010 staff survey

In 2010, OFT participated in the second annual Civil Service-wide staff survey.

The survey is designed to measure different aspects of employee engagement, including leadership, change, professional development and fair treatment at work.

See further details and download survey results.

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Publication of the OFT Business plan

The Office of Fair Trading has published its Business Plan for the next spending review period 2011-15 (SR10).

Freedom of Information monitoring data

The Office of Fair Trading has published statistics on the number of FoIA requests it has answered and the length of time it has taken to answer them.

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Organograms and staff information

We have published transparency data on organisation and staff information. 

This data includes:

• An organisation chart showing the structure of the OFT at a point in time
• Information on senior staff salaries
• Information on junior and senior staff numbers and team structure.

Tender, contract and spend information

As part of the transparency agenda, Government has made commitments with regard to procurement and contracting and spend.

View details of these commitments on the tender, contract and spend transparency information page.

OFT has published:

• Contract details
• Tender documents
• Spend disclosure

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We are currently consulting on our Competition Act 1998 investigation procedures. See A guide to the OFT's Competition Act 1998 investigation procedures - a consultation paper for more information.

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We are committed to seeking further improvements to our transparency. To inform the next phase of our work we have published a brief scoping paper (pdf 261kb) outlining areas we are considering exploring further.

We would value your feedback on the areas set out in the scoping paper and we would also like to hear your ideas on what other aspects of our work could be improved by increased transparency. All comments and suggestions should be sent to:

Jessica Nardin (5C/9)
Office of Fair Trading
Fleetbank House
2-6 Salisbury Square
London
EC4Y 8JX

Or alternatively respond using the feedback form here.

Please could we have any responses by 30 September 2010.

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On 27 May we published our Transparency statement. The Statement sets out our commitments to those involved and interested in our work in terms of how we will engage and what information we will provide throughout the life of a case or project.

To read the Summary of Responses to our consultation please go to the transparency consultation page.

Next steps

When we started this project we realised our Transparency Statement would represent our first steps towards making the OFT more transparent. We acknowledge there is still more we can do to improve transparency in other aspects of our work.

In the next phase of this project we plan to explore some of the areas which have been raised, but not addressed, during this project so far. We will shortly be publishing a brief scoping paper setting out these areas and asking for views and suggestions.

Where we are carrying out work outside the scope of this project which has a positive impact on our transparency, we will publish the details on this page.

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The consultation has now closed. You can view the responses we received here.

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We have published a consultation setting out our provisional thinking on how we can become increasingly transparent and open in the way we work.

These proposals focus on putting substantially more information in the public domain, and on how the OFT engages with interested parties during investigations and its other work. They include:

• publishing summary information about all competition and consumer enforcement cases when opened
• considering the circumstances in which the OFT can provide timetables, including giving more notice of our intention to collect substantial amounts of information
• inviting suggestions about how the OFT should best share provisional thinking on cases and projects
• making permanent the pilot of publishing contact details for OFT staff responsible for specific pieces of work.

For more information on visit the Transparency consultation page.

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We published an update to our website as part of our ongoing project to increase the transparency of our work. This update groups together a selection of the OFT's ongoing investigations and projects already in the public domain and provides further information on the investigation or project in question including contact details and, where it is possible to do so, key milestones.

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We have completed an initial external consultation with stakeholders and obtained views on the transparency of our processes. We have also carried out an initial internal review.

As a result we identified a number of areas where we considered that we could improve the transparency of our work. This includes providing additional information to our stakeholders on contact details for the projects we undertake and also our performance in terms of the time taken to complete projects.  

We will be publishing a document for full stakeholder consultation in which we will set out our emerging thinking on the issues identified as part of the project to date.

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The OFT's senior transparency champion is:

Paul Latham, Director of Communications (020 7211 8602 paul.latham@oft.gsi.gov.uk).