A Freedom of Information Act (FoI) request submitted by ISPreview.co.uk has revealed more details about the specific roles of staff working in the government’s Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) office, which is responsible for overseeing the national and publicly funded roll-out of superfast broadband services to 90% of people by spring 2015.
The debate about BDUK staffing has recently become a hot topic, not least since a parliamentary question revealed that a whopping £9.8m of the office’s budget had already been spent on 70 external consultants (between May 2010 and September 2012). On top of that the department suffered a staff turnover rate of 110% for three quarters (the rate at which an employer gains and loses employees).
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ISPreview.co.uk’s request for more information about BDUK staff, which was submitted roughly a month ago, confirms that on 2nd November 2012 the office had a total of 69 staff working within its ranks (just two of whom work as 0.8 full time employees). The roles are as follows, including external specialists (for some reason the “partridge in a pear tree” song kept cropping up while writing this).
Details of BDUK Staff Numbers and Roles
8 Programme management office, programme support, finance
1 Demand stimulation
12 Local projects directors and projects managers
3 Modelling and statistics
7 Policy and communications
3 Projects assurance
4 Regulatory and state aid issues including Broadband State Aid National Competence Centre (currently operating in shadow form)
13 Commercial and technical support for broadband projects
1 Financial support for broadband projects
6 Legal advisers
5 Programme management
6 Commercial and technical support for Mobile Infrastructure Project
Make of the detail what you will but quite a lot has been said about this already and we don’t wish to repeat ourselves. The Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) also reminded us that BDUK has responsibility for the rural broadband programme, the Urban Broadband Fund (UBF) and the Mobile Infrastructure Project (MIP).
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