Telecoms and media regulator Ofcom has lost its chief
executive after the decision by Stephen Carter to
quit.
Carter is leaving Ofcom on 15 October and it has not been
announced where he is going to. Carter does however have a 12-month
gardening leave clause in his contract, so Ofcom has the power to
prevent him joining anyone during that period.
The Ofcom chief executive is also contractually prevented from
securing future employment whilst in employment with Ofcom.
There will now be speculation that Carter may be planning to
eventually join a commercial organisation operating in the sector
he has helped to regulate since the formation of Ofcom five years
ago.
This speculation may be fuelled by the fact that Carter will
only now lead the organisation on operational and financial matters
until 15 October.
From 1 August, Carter will not be party to Ofcom's economic,
competition and policy decisions, to avoid any perceived potential
clash of interests.
Ofcom chairman David Currie, said, “Stephen took on an immensely
challenging task - and has performed outstandingly. His legacy is
an effective and credible organisation which plays an important
role in delivering greater choice, lower prices and greater
innovation.”
One of the key battlegrounds that Carter fought on was the
provision of cheaper and more widely available broadband services.
The UK is now estimated to have around 10 million customer
broadband connections, although the majority – eight million – are
still provided by BT.
Carter encouraged BT to establish its semi-independent Openreach
organisation, which is designed to make it easier for BT’s rivals
to offer alternative broadband services that are more independent
of BT’s infrastructure.
BT faced legal action by Ofcom if it didn’t do more to open up
the broadband market.
Carter said, “There is never a good time to leave a great job.
However, Ofcom is now firmly established, broadband and digital
competition are delivering real results.”