Enforcement Director

The deadline for applications will be Friday 10 January 2025 and therefore we advise getting your application in by no later than midnight on Thursday 9 January 2024.

How to Apply:

Please submit a copy of your CV, and a cover letter of no more than 2 pages in length outlining your interest in the role and how you meet the essential skills, knowledge and experience listed below.

About Ofcom

Ofcom is the regulator for the communications services that we use and rely on each day. We make sure people get the best from their broadband, home phone and mobile services, as well as keeping an eye on TV and radio.

Our culture is clear – we live by our values: Empowerment; Excellence; Collaboration; Agility and Respect. These define how we work to deliver our purpose, now and in the future. The behaviours which support these values set the path for a fully inclusive and innovative culture at Ofcom.

We focus not only on what we do, but how we do it. We pride ourselves on being an organisation of people who genuinely care about helping others.

About the team you’ll be part of

The Enforcement team is a core part of the Legal & Enforcement Group, reporting to the General Counsel. We play a critical role in ensuring that the regulation and policy we put in place to protect consumers and citizens is effective. The Enforcement team identifies and responds to non-compliance affecting consumers and competition in the telecommunications, postal, broadcasting and online safety sectors.

We don’t deal with complaints about standards on TV and radio, broadcast licensing, or most spectrum enforcement – those areas are covered by separate teams in our Broadcasting & Media and Spectrum Groups, with whom we work closely on cross-cutting issues.

The Enforcement team works with policy teams across Ofcom, carries out advocacy work with stakeholders and actively enforces the regulatory conditions that Ofcom imposes on regulated providers, as well as enforcing general consumer and competition law. We routinely monitor complaints, analyse evidence and take swift action where we see harm, including opening formal investigations, issuing penalties and seeking redress where appropriate.

The purpose and scope of the role

The Enforcement team is currently led by two Enforcement Directors, and we are now looking to appoint a third Director to lead the team with them. As an Enforcement Director you will jointly be accountable with the other Enforcement Directors for the team-wide portfolio of work, and the overall leadership of the Enforcement function. It is expected that both the substantive work and leadership of the team will require a split of duties due to span of work, however there will need to be continual close collaboration and flexibility in this approach to ensure appropriate coverage across these areas.

Your Key Responsibilities

As a Director of Ofcom’s Enforcement team, you will work together with other Enforcement Directors to:

• Lead the Enforcement team, both in its substantive work and the colleagues in the team, taking responsibility and accountability across the workplan, budgeting, resourcing, colleague development and training, strategy and advocacy.
• Play an active role as core members of both the wider Legal & Enforcement Group leadership team and Ofcom’s Senior Leadership Group.
• Oversee and be accountable for all the Enforcement team’s work, directing a wide portfolio of matters across multi-disciplinary project teams, and working collaboratively with project managers and specialists to detect and act upon compliance failures and support supervisory functions.
• Build and manage senior relationships with internal and external stakeholders in the industries we regulate, acting as an ambassador for Ofcom.
• Manage risk and overall resourcing on the Enforcement team’s portfolio of cases and projects and ensure they are delivered to time, quality and cost.
• Manage the critical points of Ofcom’s governance processes and define how Ofcom’s enforcement work fits into Ofcom’s wider strategy.
• Lead engagement with policy areas and oversee enforcement input to key policy projects, acting as a thought leader and providing advice and guidance to colleagues.

The skills, knowledge and experience you’ll need for success

• Experience/understanding of competition, consumer and/or regulatory enforcement: this can include general competition and consumer law enforcement and/or within a regulated industry or government.
• Analytical skills and experience: experience of evidence review, supervisory techniques and legal and/or economic analysis would be an advantage.
• Empowering Development: you will jointly be responsible for leading and shaping the work of the Enforcement team, providing guidance and mentoring appropriate to colleagues’ level of experience, and will draw on your own experience of leading teams, running projects, defining scope and workstreams and owning timetable. As part of this you will also be responsible for the line management of senior individuals in the team.
• Close Collaboration: you will work closely with your fellow Enforcement Directors, and will be comfortable contributing fully to the joint leadership of the team and accountability for its output, working in an open, collegiate and collaborative way.
• Owning Accountabilities: you will act as decision-maker in high profile, contentious cases, and will be comfortable both making those decisions and articulating the rationale behind them both internally and externally. You will also lead settlement discussions with senior external stakeholders.
• Channelling Influence: you will lead and contribute at a strategic level to drafting of internal and published documents and decisions which are often subject to scrutiny in the courts. You will need to be comfortable communicating arguments in person to senior colleagues within Ofcom, with senior external stakeholders and with the media, and be prepared to listen, contribute, persuade, and resolve conflicts where they arise.
• Harmonising work: you will be able to build and maintain constructive and productive relationships with internal stakeholders at all levels and engage with senior external stakeholders in a fair and professional way.
• Trailblazing Ideas: you will be able to think creatively about complex and novel problems and develop effective solutions.

At Ofcom we prioritise inclusive and diverse recruitment in order to truly reflect the society we represent.

Where positions are listed as full time, we remain open to reduced hours, part-time arrangements, job shares and other flexible working options from day one of employment. We warmly welcome applications from candidate returning to work after a break – for whatever reason.

As a disability confident employer, we offer interviews to any disabled applicant who meet essential criteria for advertised roles. Learn more about the scheme here.

If you need information in an alternative format or have specific preferences, please contact our recruitment team at resourcing@ofcom.org.uk or call 0330 912 1378.