2023 New Year Honours for Members of BT and TalkTalk’s Team
The UK Government is in the process of publishing the King’s New Year Honours List for 2023, which sees Brendan Dick, the former Director of BT in Scotland (2006-18) and former Chair of Openreach’s Scotland Board (2018-21), picking up an OBE for services to telecommunications in Scotland. But he’s not alone.
The King’s New Year Honours list is said to recognise the achievements and public service of people across the UK, from all walks of life. Anyone can nominate someone for an honour, and nominees are then “checked by various government departments to make sure they’re suitable for an honour” (this may include checks by HMRC) and an honour’s committee will also review the nominations.
As well as the OBE award for BT’s Brendan Dick, TalkTalk’s former Early Careers Manager (until October 2022), Sam Davys, has been awarded an MBE for services to Young People and to Inclusion in Digital Industries. She’s now in a different role at the ISP, but the award recognises her work under the provider’s Kickstart program during the pandemic, whereby the DWP provided funding to employers to create jobs for 16- to 24-year-olds on Universal Credit.
Brendan Dick said:
“I started out in the telecoms industry in 1980. In that time Scotland has moved from a copper-driven telephony country to one that’s exploiting fibre broadband capability in one of the most challenging geographies in Europe – and doing it well.
I’m delighted to have been part of that journey and, with the broader business community, look forward to Scotland continuing to exploit digital in the global economy. That’s the challenge and we must stay sharply focused on it.”
Sam Davys, Equality and Future Talent Manager at TalkTalk, said:
“I’m in disbelief and over the moon to receive this award. I loved every minute of working on project kickstart and to know I played a small part in changing young people’s lives by giving them their first opportunity in work means a great deal to me.”
At the time of writing, we haven’t yet been able to check whether the full list includes honours for any other figures from the UK telecommunications sector.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and Linkedin.
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absolutely deserved 100%
absolutely NOT deserved 100%
If BT managed to publish their Capital Contributions to allowable costs for all subsidised work in Scotland since 2012 and prove no capital was with-held at the time of planning the upgrades then perhaps more than OBE ought to be considered.
The creation of Openreach Boards was in response to BT Groups lack of visible network investment in the BDUK contracts while it lost £2bn in its football investments. The lack of any change in pace in the delivery of BDUK contracts in Scotland and no visible increase in transparency on who is paying what and when since the creation of Openreach points to sub-optimality. As an example the over abundance of FTTC-Cure (IMHO) in Scotland will hinder the evolution of its Data Transport infrastructure for the next 20 years. More transparency on the finances would have led to more FTTP deployed.
Totally undeserved, as is evident on how customers see BT/Openreach or TalkTalk:
https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.openreach.co.uk
https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.talktalk.co.uk
Usual suspects piping up with their greatest hits. Pretty sad really.
I’ll settle for congratulating them. In common with everyone else here not having anywhere near enough information to properly assess how deserving they are and not being a Richard congratulations seem appropriate.
We are entitled to our opinions @XGS Is On, you always say what you think so why cant we?
Pretty sure I didn’t say anyone couldn’t share their opinions, whomever. We’re all entitled to that even if those opinions are repetitive, irrelevant, rude or moronic.
NGA – ‘As an example the over abundance of FTTC-Cure (IMHO) in Scotland will hinder the evolution of its Data Transport infrastructure for the next 20 years.’
More details please.
“We’re all entitled to that even if those opinions are repetitive, irrelevant, rude or moronic.” So stop the bitching
Hate to break it to you but being entitled to opinions means you can give your opinions on other people’s opinions. Exactly as the posters I mentioned here gave their opinion on Fastman’s post.
Costs nothing to be kind. Being unkind should be called out. I’m certainly not innocent of being a bell but will call out others in the hope other people will reciprocate *when it’s deserved*.
Happy New Year.
“Exactly as the posters I mentioned here gave their opinion on Fastman’s post.”
They didn’t bitch like you, they disagreed, you bitched by saying
“Usual suspects piping up with their greatest hits. Pretty sad really.”
If you dont know the difference that is really sad.
what a surprise (usual suspects, usual conspiracy theoryists, typical ISP review rant
Saying greedy BT staff are undeserving of awards is now being a conspiracy theorist according to the “brilliant” posters fastman and XGS
Lets give all those people who have done a terrible job this year a MBE, OBE, CBE or Knighthood to say thank you.
Thats what Fastman and XGS_is_On are saying.
Why is the well regarded @Mark Jackson not featured in the list.
They have noticed that the guy on the other website who got one does very little to help people these days. Keep up the good work Mark
I’m sure Mark will get his at some point!
Apparently to get a knighthood you need to photograph yourself in your underpants for a dating site – like Chris Bryant MP(Chair of the Committees on Standards and Privileges).