Our campaigning priorities

Consumer decisions aren't just about choosing the right product.

A bad buy on the high street may be frustrating, but sometimes when things go wrong - a mis-sold pension, a rip-off estate agent, a medical error or a botched building job - the effects can be severe. There may also be implications for safety and health: BSE and CJD, the UK diet disaster and safe medicines.

Millions of us face problems choosing a reputable trader or complaining about bad service, or understanding the information we need to use to make every day decisions, such as food labelling or financial information.

What we campaign on

Which? has identified a number of campaign priorities concerning food, health and personal finance. From these we're campaigning on kids' food marketing, bank charges, cosmetic treatments, health care standards and payment protection insurance. We also tackle specific consumer issues as they arise, including estate agents and flight rights.

When we prioritise our campaigns we analyse how many consumers are affected by a problem and how badly. Sometimes the problem affects millions of people, for example dodgy estate agents, or endowment mortgage mis-selling.

Sometimes the issue may not affect millions of people, but those who are affected suffer greatly through loss of money or impact on their health and safety.

Sometimes we campaign to stop things from happening because we know from other countries' experience, that a change of policy can really affect consumers negatively.

We keep in touch with what consumers think about their problems and issues which affect them through research, our members, the internet and our customer service centre. We constantly assess the emerging issues we need to research in order to develop our campaigns for the future.

The consumer manifesto

All consumers have a vote, so we think consumer needs should be at the top of the agenda.

The Which? consumer manifesto sets out the commitments we want all the parties to make in the run up to the next general election. Specifically, we want:

• A root and branch review of house buying, selling and letting that delivers radical improvements in current policy and practice.
• Diet and health crisis to be the number one health priority, including tackling the way food companies manufacture and market their products.
• Intelligent regulation that puts consumers first.
• Reform of the Financial Services Authority to ensure that consumer interest is at the heart of policy making and supervision.

BSE reports

Our BSE reports feature regular updates of science news, relevant general news and official figures. Email us for a copy of the latest one.