Ofcom's new broom Sharon White sweeps into office Communications watchdog Ofcom confirmed this morning that it has found a replacement for outgoing chief Ed Richards. Sharon White will head up the regulator from late March, on an annual salary of £275,000, after she ends her senior role at the Treasury. White currently serves as Second Permanent Secretary of the Finance …
She's also a career civil servant, who as far as I can tell has never worked in the private sector.
And she's part of that clique of intellectual titans that wrote and believe the "business cases" for such misguided nonsense like HS2 or smart meters.
I'd say she'll fit right in at the shambolic, ineffectual mess that is OFCOM.
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"Why wouldn't she?"
As far as I can see, no other senior civil servant does, so the odds are not good.
And her background is flipping between different departments and assignments. So chances are she's like the other civil service mandarins - never done anything useful, never worked in a real job, and never even stayed long enough in one place to understand any area of government.
Apart from that, having an Oxford degree in economics I'm sure she's absolutely on top of IPv6, spectrum licensing, effectively regulating Openreach, mobile consolidation, broadband competition, mobile asset sharing, 4G, TV multiplexes, privacy and IoT, not to mention all the issues of being the regulator of the postal service.
What do you think?
Don't base your opinion of all civil servants on the people you see as mouthpieces. There are plenty of clued up, smart, savvy people in the civil service. It may seem like an easy target but that shows a general lack of appreciation for what it's really like.
Having worked in both the private and public sectors, it seems that the idiot quotient is similar in both spheres. Nobody has a monopoly on stupid. I can also tell you that working in the public sector is a real job. I have never been so stressed, overworked and under-resourced to deliver a massive work programme as when I was at a large public service organisation. Much worse than my time in the utilities, FMCG, financial services or consulting firms I have worked for.
As a regulator, you need to understand *more than anything* the long term social and economic impacts of the decisions you make. She will need to surround herself with boffins that know all the technical things you've noted. That and some good lawyers.
I'd say the fact that she has gained a degree from Oxford will mean that she is capable of quickly learning what is important and getting her head around it to sufficient levels of detail to know what matters, as long as her boffins are sufficiently capable. I suspect that may be her biggest challenge...
I suspect 'Oxford' is being used as a wind up, all the evidence points to Cambridge (http://www.awards.civilserviceworld.com/diversity-and-equality-awards/judges/11-civil-service-world-awards/diversity-and-equality-awards/diversity-and-equality-awards-2013/judges-2013/29-sharon-white)
"275k? FFS..."
Well quite,
The limited vision will presumably make it easier when it comes to being unable to see blatant misbehaviour from outfits like BT at one end, and at the other end outfits like the "independent local radio" companies who these days are neither independent nor local nor in compliance with their licences, and so on. After all, as a committed Christian, there are certain moral rules she will want to abide by.
Well, I have to read a lot of boring crap all the time in the office and I would have gone mad if I had to do it using only one eye. Maybe she is more resillient than I, or I fear for her eyesight and mental state, or the job specs for that position do not include a lot of reading...
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