Interim Director / Chief Economist

Whilst we undertake a recruitment for a permanent Chief Economist, we require an interim Chief Economist to support the programme of work. The purpose of this role is to provide excellent economic and policy challenge and support to the work of the Ofwat’s eight programmes: Water 2020, Finance and Governance, Business Transformation, Compliance and Assurance, Thames Tideway, Strategy and Planning, Non-household retail market opening and Casework. The role will support teams working within the programmes to ensure that our emerging policy proposals are economically sound and to maximize the benefits of those reforms for customers and the wider environment in line with our statutory duties. The successful applicant will need to challenge policy teams in a solutions focused way that helps to improve our proposals and ensure that they are developed against a sound analytical framework and that they are supported by strong evidence and robust to external challenge, including from appeals to the Competition and Markets Authority. They will need to provide strong Quality Assurance support to our proposals in particular in relation to our May decision documents. In line with this the successful applicant will need to develop, in conjunction with colleagues the Impact Assessment for the May document to support the benefits case for our proposed reforms. Key responsibilities within the programme • The role will particularly provide support to the Design work-stream within W2020 programme, and support development of an economically coherent May 2016 publication that minimizes Ofwat's risk of challenge under Judicial Review or at the CMA following a licence appeal. • The successful applicant will need to develop, in conjunction with W2020 colleagues the Impact Assessment for the May document to support the benefits case for our proposed reforms. • Provide advice and support to all the programmes as required.