Ofcom confirms our plan of work for 2022/23

25 Mar 2022 01:42 PM

Ofcom has today published our plan of work for 2022/23, detailing our priorities for the next financial year.

Communications underpin how people live, learn and work in the UK today. From TV to radio, telecoms to post, over the airwaves and online – Ofcom’s mission is to make communications work for everyone around the UK, at a time of unprecedented change.

Following consultation, including a virtual event to gain feedback on our proposed plan, we have today set out our areas of work for the coming year.

Ofcom’s themes for 2022/23

• Investment in strong, secure networks. We will support continued investment in high-quality and reliable broadband and mobile networks.
• Getting everyone connected. We want to make sure people and businesses can access communications services, and that nobody is left behind as services evolve. We will work to make sure that the universal postal service is sustainable for the future.
• Fairness for customers. We will support customers and ensure they are treated fairly, continuing our fairness for customers programme and tackling scams. Having set clear standards, we will shift our focus to monitoring and understanding the effect of the implementation and delivery of those interventions.
• Enabling wireless services in the broader economy. We manage the UK’s spectrum for the benefit of everyone in the UK. Our goal is to drive efficiency and support innovation, ensuring this invisible, essential and finite resource is used efficiently.
• Supporting and developing UK media. We will support the UK’s vibrant media sector, including public service media, helping it to evolve to meet the changing needs of viewers and listeners.
• Serving and protecting audiences. We will protect people from potentially harmful and offensive content, while taking full account of freedom of expression. We will continue to issue, manage and maintain licences for all national and local commercial TV, and radio services.
• Establishing regulation of online safety. We will establish our regulation of UK-established video-sharing platforms as we continue our preparations for the broader online safety regime. We will deepen our organisational preparations for our new regulatory responsibilities as the Online Safety Bill proceeds through parliament.

The plan of work also includes our work programme for the next year, which explains the key activities we will be undertaking over the next 12 months across all of our work.