A day in the life of the Chief Executive's Office at Ofcom

Shane Scott tells us what it's like working in the Chief Executive's Office at Ofcom.

A typical day in the Chief Executive’s Office doesn’t really exist. I work in a very small team of five members (including Sharon White, CEO). We have a twice weekly meeting to flag up priority areas of work, and the rest of the week is made up of ensuring Sharon has what she needs to do her job effectively. On any given day this can involve organising briefings, dealing with correspondence from senior stakeholders, or seizing contraband homeware appliances from rogue department stores in the west midlands.

A helicopter view

The main element of my role is the work I do as part of the Chief Executive’s team. This can include drafting presentations for Sharon, sitting in on senior stakeholder meetings and Policy Discussions, or leading on the Chief Executive’s correspondence. This is the bread and butter stuff that happens consistently most weeks. It’s fascinating work in that you get a fantastic helicopter view of how we do policy, how the organisation is run and perhaps most interestingly how to deal with difficult stakeholders.

Priority projects

One of the great aspects of working in the team is the visibility you have for all the work that Ofcom does. In addition to the main element of my work in or with the team I’ve also become involved in providing additional resource to priority projects. This is where I think the role really shines. I had wanted to spend a stint in the Strategy team, but somewhat ran out of rotations on the Graduate Scheme. Having the opportunity to get involved in interesting projects is a fantastic aspect of the role and I’ve been able to work on a number of projects with the Strategy team. Most recently I’ve been leading on producing papers for the Board strategy day, an annual event where the Ofcom Board discusses upcoming challenges for Ofcom, and what our strategies should be to overcome those challenges.

I suppose that one of the best things about the role is that its very much what you make it. Had I wanted to work on content issues, there may have been scope for me to work on the BBC Operating Licence. Had I wanted to learn more about spectrum I may have been given the opportunity to work on the 5G auction. The team is incredibly flexible, which has allowed me to develop in the areas that I wanted to, while also getting unrivalled exposure to senior management, stakeholder management and policy-making.

I’ve only been here six months, but this job has given me some amazing stories. I have taken calls from relatives of overthrown middle-eastern dictators, had a casual email exchange with the Executive Chairman of Alphabet, had my flat swept for surveillance bugs and yesterday I met Ed Miliband.

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