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exasperaited

Ofcom is a government-approved industry regulator, strictly speaking.

It is what in the UK gets called a Quango. A quasi-non-government-organisation.

It is not a government body. It is not under direct ministerial control.

It gets some funds from government (but mostly through fees levied on industry):

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7c8eec40f0b...

But it operates within industry as the industry's regulator, and its approach has always been to operate that way (just as the other Of- quangos do).

Here is what appears to be their own take on it.

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/cons...

This seems pretty consistent with what I said -- it is essentially a self-regulation body, promoting self-regulation but backed by statutory powers/penalties.

Now what else is untrue?

ETA: rate-limited so I am not able to properly respond to the below. Bye for now.

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Quasi-autonomous, to be completely accurate. They consult regularly with the industry and ministers but the Office of Communications Act established Ofcom to be independent of both Government and industry. They're accountable to Parliament.

Perhaps that's the reason this is getting misunderstood. The distinction between the government and parliament is technical within the UK political system. To everyone outside that system, the whole system is "the government".

It's the political version of someone pointing to a computer tower and saying "this CPU can hold all of your music" and then you (a computer technician) interject "actually the hard drive can hold all of your music".

Your claim that Ofcom is in any way a "self-regulation body" is untrue. And frankly also a straight-up insane thing to say, sorry.

Ofcom was created by the UK government for the sole purpose of enforcing laws passed by the UK government [and sometimes interpreting those laws]. It acts on behalf of the State at all times, and is not empowered to do otherwise under any circumstances EVER.

You appear to be confused about what being a "quango" actually means in this case. "Quasi-NGO" means that while it appears to be a non-governmental organisation, it is not one. Ofcom's at arm's length because the majority of its daily legal obligations are closer to judicial than administrative, and it is UK custom (rightly) to not put judicial functions inside government departments.

While you're correct about Ofcom, the real distinction isn't really to the objective, but to the classification of its employees.

Ofcom, Gambling Commission, and the rest of the quangos are independent statutory bodies, and (this is a big distinction!) their employees are not civil servants.

Quangos include judicial tribunals and places like the BBC, or the Committee on Climate Change- it is a broad umbrella.

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