The Government has appointed a new head of broadband policy who has absolutely no background in the IT or telecoms industry.
Simon Towler is the new head of broadband policy and programmes at the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS). His duties will include helping to deliver on the Government’s pledge to deliver nationwide 2Mbits/sec connections by 2012 and the Government-funded rollout of next-generation networks.
Towler, who holds a PhD in molecular biology, has spent the past three years as the deputy director of better regulation at BIS. Prior to that he worked as a deputy director of aerospace at the DTI, and as a trade policy secretary at the British Embassy in Washington, according to Towler’s LinkedIn profile.
The appointment of the head of broadband policy and programmes was made in line with the usual employment procedures in the civil service
PC Pro asked the Government why it had appointed a career civil servant with no IT experience to such a senior role, to which a BIS spokesperson replied: “the appointment of the head of broadband policy and programmes was made in line with the usual employment procedures in the civil service.”
We asked BIS what those procedures are and how much Towler is being paid, but it refused to comment.
Poor technical knowledge
The lack of technical expertise at the Department of Business was recently exposed by a committee of MPs, who questioned the Government’s universal 2Mbits/sec commitment. When asked to define what the promise actually meant, the department replied that a 2Mbits/sec connection “should look and feel like a 2Mbits/sec commitment as someone in areas served by those markets would understand it”.
As the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee noted, “this is not a helpful statement”.
The Department was also responsible for a flawed explanation of what different broadband speeds can achieve in a recent Government report.
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