Ofcom has today appointed eight new individuals, including a new Chairman, to its so called "Ofcom Advisory Committee For England".  A brief read of their CVs suggests that all of these people have been carefully selected as individuals already previously deeply immersed in the existing telecoms and broadcasting industry establishment who can be virtually guaranteed to simply endorse all of Ofcom's existing policies and prejudices despite the alleged remit of this Advisory Commitee being to "provide advice to Ofcom about the interests and opinions of people living in the Nations and Regions on all communications matters".  Ofcom seems to interpret this as meaning that it should only appoint people already running the industries it seeks to regulate rather than as you might perhaps expect appointing a representative cross section of the community of England as a whole. ;)::)

Regrettably The Ofcom gravy train for New Labour cronies continues to roll and never has the saying "qui custodiet custodies" been more apt. :o >:( :'(


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Ofcom has appointed Professor William Dutton as Chair of the Advisory Committee for England. Bill will also be member for the South East region. As Director of the Oxford Internet Institute and Professor of Internet Studies at the University of Oxford, Bill is an expert in emerging technologies and how they shape both policy and the citizen and consumer experience. A Fellow of Balliol, his department focuses on the societal implications of emerging technologies like the Internet. Graham Creelman, East Region Graham spent 10 years as the Managing Director of Anglia Television and Director of Regional Programming for the ITV Network. He was the founding Chair of Screen East, the Film Council’s representative body in the East Region. He is now a Creative Consultant; Chair of the RDA's Creative Industries Sector Group; a Trustee of the ITV Pension Fund; Chair of the Regional Cultural Consortium and a Non-Executive Director of Government Office for the East of England. Dharmash Mistry, London Dharmash is one of seven Partners at Balderton Capital, one of Europe’s leading venture capital firms. Before joining Balderton he spent eight years building Emap’s consumer and digital business in various Executive roles. Most recently he was part of the management team that sold Emap’s consumer business to H Bauer for £1.1bn. Prior to this he spent a number of years at The Boston Consulting Group, having previously started his career as a Brand manager at Procter and Gamble. Olwyn Hocking, North East Olwyn is currently the Director of Digital Voice for Communities, a social enterprise which works with agencies, charities and local authorities on media initiatives designed to help bridge the “digital divide”. Prior to this, Olwyn was the Head of Regional and Local Programmes for the BBC in the North East and Cumbria and Controller of Regional Programmes at Tyne Tees TV. She is a Fellow of the Royal Television Society.. Wendy Pilmer, North East Wendy runs her own consultancy having spent the last 21 years at the BBC, most recently leading the BBC's tri-media operations in the North East and Cumbria. She was Deputy Controller of Radio 4 between 1999 and 2002 and previously Head of Presentation at 5Live, Head of Specialist Music at Radio One and a SONY Award winning producer at Radio 1 and 4. John Varney, North West John currently runs his own consultancy, Maximum Clarity, supporting public and private sector bodies with a wide range of technology issues. His previous roles include just under five years as Chief Technology Officer for the BBC and six years as Director of Technology for Granada. In these roles John oversaw the launch of digital terrestrial television in seven of the 13 ITV Regions and managed the development of a range of new BBC services including its R&D division. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and the Royal Television Society. Helen Foster, West Midlands A rural broadband specialist, Helen is the Managing Consultant at BroadEdged Consultants. Recent clients include the West Midlands and South West Development Agencies and the Scottish Government. Prior to her current role she was Chief Executive and Managing Director of the West Midlands Networking Company which delivered regional broadband objectives for the RDA and DTI. Robert Watson, East Midlands Robert has 24 years experience in the Telecoms business, including five years as BT's Regional Manager for the East Midlands. During that time he worked with a wide range of bodies including the RDA, City and County Councils and local businesses to promote new technology for both business and social benefit which included the roll out of broadband. Robert spent 13 years in the Army before moving into Telecoms and he currently runs a business advice consultancy. Further to these eight new appointments, Anne Scorer has been reappointed to the Committee. Anne runs a digital media consultancy and is currently based at the South West RDA as a Senior Consultant: Creative Industries. She previously managed her own independent TV production company producing high-quality documentaries Anne is a member of BAFTA and has been on the Ofcom Advisory Committee for England since 2005.

Yet a further concern I have about the methods of advertising and appointing the members of these so called "Advisory Committees" is that despite the fact that I subscribe to all of Ofcom's Update email notification lists none of them has sent me a notice advising me of the existence of the vacancies on these Committees or their closing dates.

Now whilst I agree that Ofcom also do not send me notices of job vacancies at Ofcom the positions on these advisory committees are not supposed to be Ofcom jobs but are instead statutory commitees set up by the Communications Act 2003 designed to help Ofcom better fulfil its duties under the Act.  With that being so it appears to me that there is a close match between people on Ofcom's Update email lists and the kind of people who might be interested in applying to be on these Advisory Committees and also on its so called Consumer Panel.

With that being so one wonders why it is that Ofcom does not notify vacancies on these Committees throught its update lists?  Is it so that Ofcom can instead quietly only solicit headhunters to point their ex telecoms and media industry clients to apply for these positions rather than Ofcom running any risk that people with a genuine wish to represent the best interests of UK citizens and UK consumers may apply for a position on one of these Committees. ::)

I see that a Google for "ofcom", "advisory commitee" and "applications" does not produce any relevant hits.

I think an FOI to Ofcom as to how they advertised these appointments might be in order as one could almost be tempted to believe that only certain ex BBC, ITV and BT people and a couple of other Ofcom cronies were tipped off about the existence of these vacancies. ;)

If this Advisory Committee is a 'statutory body (?)' under the relevant Act, presumably their responibilities are set out clearly. It might be worth a legal opinion on how they could be held to account if Ofcom decisions are perverse or opaque. Could any such decisions be subject to judicial review?

See http://www.ofcom.org.uk/about/csg/adv_cmmt_nations/


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Ofcom has established separate advisory committees for the Nations on the whole breadth of its communications responsibilities in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and for the English Regions. These Committees have been established under statute, specifically Section 20(1) of the Communications Act 2003. Members of the advisory committee for each Nation are appointed through an open public process. The Advisory Committees for the Nations are tasked to identify those aspects of Ofcom's current work and of communications in general which are of particular importance for their nation, to work with the Ofcom Executive to inform themselves on these topics and to offer advice to Ofcom accordingly. The Committees are also asked to be prepared to respond to specific consultation requests from Ofcom on matters where a non-metropolitan perspective will be valuable even though there may not be specific national issues.

As to judical review I suppose it depends on whether you have a spare £100k or so available in your bank account or not? ;) :-/

NGMsGhost wrote on Feb 6^th, 2009 at 11:13am:

See http://www.ofcom.org.uk/about/csg/adv_cmmt_nations/

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As to judical review I suppose it depends on whether you have a spare £100k or so available in your bank account or not? ;) :-/

Know what you mean about the £100K - in another universe I'm trying to rally support for such a potential move against the National Trust for Scotland. However, the terms of this committee don't seem to cover the supervision of Of-con's decision making processes.

Ah well - back to the drawing board :-/