ABSTRACT
Nearly all our essential goods and services are provided through ‘liberalised’ markets. The UK government Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS) argued in its 2012 report Better Choices: Better Deals that ‘Markets rely heavily on active and informed consumers to drive competition’ (BIS 2011: 4). BIS therefore outlines a consumer empowerment strategy to ‘put information and influence into the hands of consumers and help secure a significant power shift to citizens and communities’ (BIS 2011: 4) A key element in achieving this goal is the realisation that ‘not everybody is a confident consumer – which is why Better Choices: Better Deals is also about helping to support the vulnerable in becoming more confident as consumers’ (BIS 2011: 2). However, following the publication of Better Choices, Better Deals, a number of organisations (Consumer Futures, Citizens Advice and Citizens Advice Scotland) submitted a report to BIS, written by Jonathan Stearn (Stearn 2012), arguing that consumer vulnerability is not just resolved by people gaining more confidence as consumers. Consumer vulnerability cannot simply be seen as consumers’ failure to engage with the market when markets are failing to engage with consumers.
