Ofcom has today appointed the former Chairman of its Ofcom Consumer Panel, Colette Bowe, and also retired broadcasting industry person Tim Gardam to its board.  At the same time Sara Nathan is standing down as Non Exec Director.

see:- http://www.ofcom.org.uk/media/news/2008/01/nr_20080107

It remains to be seen whether either of these individuals will do a better job than previous Ofcom Non Exec Directors in calling the Ofcom Executive Board members to account for their staggering continued incompetence in failing to ensure a transparent call pricing system for UK consumers and especially when making calls to 084 and 087 phone numbers and/or for that matter when using mobile phone data services (as recent news broadcasts have indicated a new and growing area for the telecoms companies to fleece the unwary consumer).

Obviously Ms Bowe's record as Chairman of the Ofcom Consumer Panel was hardly earth shattering in that regard with the only matter they ever got publicly stirred up about being TalkTalk and other broadband providers lieing about offer 8Mbps broadband connections that their network cannot actually support.  Whilst this area is of concern it is a trivial problem compared to the much greater consumer ripoff over calling 084/7 numbers. :o >:( [smiley=thumbdown.gif] [smiley=thumbdown.gif] [smiley=thumbdown.gif]

One suspects that neither of these people will in fact actually make any waves at all and instead will concentrate mainly on drawing their allowances, whilst planning for a comfortable and well paid retirement.

Yet once again we concur NGMsG!

On this occasion I rather regret that I have the same identical viewpoint, not that I regret agreeing with you of course, but because it is clearly a case of more Public Money going down the drain again. Unless Non-Execs on any board are of the calibre, and have the knowledge and experience to guide and hold the board to account, when it or its full-time members digress or fail, there is little point in any appointment of Non-Execs. This has become increasingly recognised, particularly in enterprises. It is probably even more important in organisations which are already cost-centres or cash-sinks?  

Can I join you two this time.

The OCP is a support arm to Ofcom. Ms Bowe as its chair, in my experience, showed herself to be fully on board with all of Ofcom's thinking. The OCP showed no interest whatsoever in my earlier efforts - not even acknowledgement my communications. Ms Bowe simply congratulated Ofcom whenever it made announcements of feeble actions.

Who said non-execs were used to call executives to account. Quite the reverse, they are there on the inside to help prevent them from being called to account.

David

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Jan 7^th, 2008 at 6:21pm:

The OCP is a support arm to Ofcom. Ms Bowe as its chair, in my experience, showed herself to be fully on board with all of Ofcom's thinking. The OCP showed no interest whatsoever in my earlier efforts - not even acknowledgement my communications. Ms Bowe simply congratulated Ofcom whenever it made announcements of feeble actions.

SCV for some reason the update email indicating your response to my post in this thread did not arrive and I have thus only just read it.  But I am pleased to see that for once we are in near total agreement on something.

The Ofcom Consumer Panel and Ofcom Advisory Committees for the four English Nations seem to have as their stated agenda a pro consumer mission but due to the way they are in reality totally under Ofcom's control (because all the permanent staff are Ofcom employees drawing Ofcom pensions and based in its offices) they end up only acting as disgraceful cipher bodies where various freeloaders draw allowances but achieve almost nothing on behalf of the public.  Indeed I heard directly from perhaps the only independently minded or effective member of the Ofcom Advisory Committee of England that this is indeed the case and that anyone who attacks Ofcom too publicly is then not reappointed.

I am particulalry disillusioned with Ms Bowe who I met in person a number of times in my previous position with a financial trade association but who has never responded personally to one of my emails.  Indeed it is unusual to even get a read receipt.  So far as I can tell she seems to use her former notoriety at the DTI and FSA to pick up a large number of well paid non exec directorships while doing as little in return for them as possible.

Also I made two different applications for vacancies on the Ofcom Consumer Panel and one for the Ofcom Advisory Committee For England and was not even called for interview despite my CV making it perfectly clear that I was knowledgeable in technical and communications matters and was also experienced in representing the interests of the general public in governmental bodies

I am not saying they should have appointed me but I should at least have got an initial interview if this was not simply a case of jobs only for New Labour's girls and boys.

Ofcom is a nice big fat useless Quango.  For an interesting take on Quangoes in general see:

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/views/liverpool-columnists/joe-riley/2008/01/10/blimey-we-ve-been-quango-d-100252-20333726/

Blimey, we’ve been quango’d
Jan 10 2008 by Joe Riley, Liverpool Echo

£167 BILLION a year?

And there was me thinking the government spending £2 BILLION a year on consultants was bad.

Sort of makes Hain's 'administrative oversight' with £103,000 donations via a people-less think tank look like tea money, doesn't it.

JHC!