Annual Report 2006 - CHAPTER 5 Facts and Figures

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"Annual Report 2006"

CHAPTER 5
Facts and Figures

5.1 User satisfaction

The Competition Authority has a wide range of tasks. Regulatory tasks include some not directly requested by the customers, e.g. cases of the Authority or the Council making decisions entailing obligations or conducting unannounced inspections of selected enterprises. Thus, the competition cases do not always favour customers. However, this does not prevent the Authority from aiming at a high degree of customer satisfaction.

Via interviews with most of its customers, the Competition Authority has measured customer satisfaction since 1998 within the fields of competition, energy, procurement, and state aid. Customers include enterprises, lawyers and other authorities whose cases have been handled by the Authority.

Average user satisfaction in general in 2006 was 77 percent. That is satisfactory, although not quite as good as compared to some previous years.

Average user satisfaction, 2000 - 2006*

* The Danish Ministry of Economic and Business Affairs conducted a common user satisfaction survey in 2001 covering all its institutions. This survey cannot be compared to surveys conducted by the Authority and the result from 2001 is therefore left out.

According to the table below satisfaction in the competition area has been quite stable since 2004 with only minor variations. The Authority scores high on returning calls (92 percent), intelligibility of letters (91 percent), and getting in touch by phone (90 percent). Service level in general is also quite high (89 percent).

The low scores are sector knowledge (61 percent), duration of case handling (67 percent – although there has been an improvement of 7 percentage points since 2005), and reasoning sufficient (68 percent).

When it comes to sector knowledge improvements are quite difficult to gain, as the Authority covers a wide field of sectors. It’s unlikely that the Authority can have the same sector knowledge as the businesses and companies within the sectors.

When it comes to sufficient reasoning it is also difficult to increase user satisfaction, as case decisions often go against parties involved.

User survey, competition 2004 - 2006

5.2 Projects

A major part of the development work of the Authority takes place in projects that analyse problems in the various fields of the Authority. 10-12 full-time equivalents are currently set aside for projects. The project results are published in separate reports or in the Annual Competition Report.

Projects, 2006

In 2006, 14 projects were concluded:
Competition Report 2006
Competition in Nordic Retail Banking
Trade on the internet
Competition on debit card markets 2006
Procurement rules
Financial services and unit trusts
Insurance
Health care
Gardeners and gardening
Television broadcast
The use of pesticides
The increase in new businesses
Fines in international competition cases
Facts on threshold values and calculations on contracts

The Competition Report, which is published annually, describes relevant competition and political problems illustrated by both Danish and international examples. The subjects chosen are those of significance to the quality and understanding of the work of the Competition Authority, as well as theoretical and practical problems for the framework conditions of trade and industry. The first Competition Report was published in December 1997. The Competition Report 2006 is the ninth report published in a series.

5.3 Key figures

Number of employees, 2006

Expenditure, 2006

Version 1.0 May 2007 • © Danish Competition Authority.
Published by the Danish Competition Authority, http://www.ks.dk/
Publication produced according to the standard for electronic publication set by the Government