Lord (Terry) Burns of Pitshanger is the new chairman of Ofcom. He is also, or has been, permanent secretary at the Treasury, chairman of Glas Cymru, Santander UK, the National Lottery, Abbey National, the Royal Academy of Music, the Monteverdi Orchestra, Welsh Water, the NIESR, and M&S. He’s inevitably Lord Ubiquity on the non-exec directorial front, plus a senior fellow (or equivalent) of every economics cabal in town, including the oversight board at the Office for Budget Responsibility. He used to be a director of Queens Park Rangers.
In short, he’s served almost everywhere and done almost everything. Does that make him a suitable overall boss of UK media regulation (on £120,000 a year)? Only if you believe that ex-Treasury polymaths – superintending chief Sharon White, another former Treasury mandarin – are the obvious answer for Ofcom as a digital revolution sweeps on. Only, in the curiously closed world of media policing, if you assume that good old Baron Burns is the perfect, safe choice for any HMG plum job going. Plus ça change, plus c’est le même Terry.
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