Part 7: OFCOM's powers and duties in relation to regulated services Chapter 1: General Duties Section 93: Duty to carry out impact assessments
This section extends OFCOM’s duty to carry out impact assessments on important proposals under section 7 of the Communications Act 2003 (CA 2003) to their online safety functions.
	Section 7(2A) of the CA 2003 will provide that all proposals to introduce, replace or amend codes of practice under the Online Safety Act 2023 are "important proposals" for the purposes of OFCOM’s duty to carry out impact assessments. This means that OFCOM will either need to undertake and publish an impact assessment on these proposals, or to publish a statement detailing why they consider such an assessment unnecessary.
	Section 7(4B) of the CA 2003 provides that all assessments of proposals which relate to the carrying out of OFCOM’s online safety functions must include an assessment of the likely impact of implementing the proposal on small and micro businesses. If only part of the proposal relates to OFCOM’s online safety functions, then only that part must be assessed to determine its likely impact on small and micro businesses.