The timing is spectacular, even for a government with very little sense of irony.
Having just given the boot to Boris Johnson despite “adoring” proclamations, ministers are now embarking on a drive to streamline operations and improve ministerial accountability. Yet one suggestion may have the exact opposite effect.
On the day the UK also saw food price inflation hit 9.8%, according to the latest ONS figures, one of the cost-cutting ideas under consideration is… to scrap the Groceries Code Adjudicator.
Yes, this is the same Adjudicator facing the worst crisis of relations between suppliers and supermarkets since the role began in 2013. The same Adjudicator who only in March belatedly took on the role of policing online giant Amazon. The same Adjudicator who is facing a string of arbitrations as an avalanche of cost price inflation requests threatens to see trading disputes multiply – just as cash-strapped Brits count on supermarkets and suppliers to try to keep prices down.
Yet ministers have decided this is the time to look at folding the GCA’s responsibilities into those of the Competition & Markets Authority. The move – one it toyed with in 2016 – would spell the demise of the body responsible for ensuring suppliers are treated lawfully and fairly, just as those suppliers face their biggest challenges in decades.
In fairness, yesterday the FDF did call on ministers to “reform burdensome regulation and red tape” – but this is likely not what they had in mind.
Neither are the moves likely to free up vast sums for the tax cuts being called for by many in the Tory ranks. The GCA is largely funded by a levy imposed on the 14 supermarkets and online companies it policies, all of whom have a turnover upwards of £1bn a year.
Politicians have notoriously short memories and probably forget that only a few years ago there was talk of expanding the Adjudicator’s role to cover a wider brief, including indirect suppliers.
They also must forget the state of relations between suppliers and retailers prior to 2013 – one described by GSCOP expert Ged Futter this week as being “like the wild west”.
That’s not to say everyone is satisfied with the impact Christine Tacon and the current Adjudicator Mark White have had during their respective times in office, with just two investigations to date and accusations of short-notice delistings and other questionable behaviour again on the rise.
“If you think about ‘effectiveness’ and ‘efficiency’ in the review period, 2019-2022, the GCA has not undertaken any investigations or issued much guidance,” says Mark Jones, a partner at law firm Gordons LLP. “We have seen the designation of Home Bargains/B&M/Amazon/Ocado, but that was done by the CMA. So, the question as to whether or not the CMA would be more effective as a groceries regulator is a fair one.”
Yet do suppliers think they would be better or worse off being policed by the CMA, alongside its plethora of other concerns?
Even if some are frustrated at what they see as the Adjudicator’s lack of teeth, surely few will greet the government’s “efficiency drive” with anything other than trepidation.
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