The Advisory Committee for Northern Ireland advises Ofcom about the interests and opinions, in relation to communications matters, of people living in Northern Ireland.
The Committee usually meets five times a year. The Committee’s minutes are provided to the Ofcom Board.
The remit of the Advisory Committee is to:
10 March 2020
1 June 2020
9 September 2020
25 November 2020
Carrie Matchett is a self-employed consultant specialising in governance and strategy. She has over twenty years’ experience working in audience-facing roles for the BBC in Northern Ireland and across the UK. Most recently she led the Northern Ireland office of the BBC Trust, working to ensure that the views of local stakeholders and audiences impacted on major decisions about the BBC, its strategy and services. She has a strong interest in representing consumer interests in the rapidly developing communications sector.
Carrie is Chair of Thrive, the charity which leads audience development across the arts and culture sector in Northern Ireland. She joined the ACNI on 1 June 2018 and her appointment runs until 30 April 2022.
John Ellison is a modern languages graduate who worked for BT for 36 years, transferring from London to Northern Ireland in 1987. In the last 17 years of his time with BT he took over responsibility for, amongst other things, the regulatory and regulatory compliance interfaces for BT in Northern Ireland. He also represented BT Northern Ireland interests in regulation and regulatory compliance at BT Group level, as well as, latterly, having a broader strategic regulatory/compliance role across various BT lines of business.
John joined the ACNI on 1 September 2017. His appointment runs until 28 February 2021.
Kathy Graham is a public policy, strategic development and stakeholder engagement consultant with a career spanning 20 years in leading public sector, private, community and voluntary organisations. Kathy specialises in the provision of advice and guidance for effective public consultations in regulated sectors. Previously Kathy was Director of Policy within the Consumer Council for Northern Ireland. There she led policy work in regulated and unregulated industries, including Energy, Transport, Post, Water and Money Affairs. She also led on consumer complaints and service improvement. Kathy has a BSc (Hons) in Psychology and an MSc in Occupational Psychology. She is a Trustee and Director of Age NI, and a Non-Executive Director of the Driver Vehicle Agency.
Kathy joined the ACNI on 1 September 2017. Her appointment runs until 28 February 2021.
Alan Meban is a freelance journalist, videographer and social media coach who reports from civic, academic and political events, chairs discussions, reviews films and theatre performances, and live-tweets, streams and records lectures and conferences. For 21 years, Alan was a designer and enterprise architect in IT departments at BT supporting a range of lines of business as well as external customers. He was appointed to the BBC Audience Council of Northern Ireland between 2007 and 2012. He runs social media training, coaching and consultancy, is a director of FactCheckNI, convenes the Presbyterian Church in Ireland’s IT Panel, and is a member of the Corrymeela Community.
Alan joined the ACNI on 1 September 2017. His appointment runs until 28 February 2021.
Paul is an Electronic Engineer, with over 20 years experience in the private sector, working with BT and ICL CFM. In his role with BT he was responsible for various stages and partnership arrangements for significant services delivered into the public sector across Northern Ireland, GB and Republic of Ireland. He was part of the leadership team in BT Ireland, involved in partnerships in different guises including sales, delivery and overall management.
He specialised in communications, specifically data communications, and latterly the merging of technology delivered over IP platforms. Currently Paul is leading the procurement of a Shared Network for the NI Public Sector.
Paul joined the ACNI on 1 September 2014 and his appointment runs until 28 February 2021.
Phil is a former MLA for Fermanagh & South Tyrone, and also a former Deputy Chair of the Assembly’s Enterprise Committee. Outside of politics, he has worked in the telecoms and not-for-profit sectors and currently works in the manufacturing industry.
Phil joined the ACNI on 17 December 2018. His appointment runs until 16 December 2021.
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As well as the appointed Members of the Advisory Committee, the Content Board Member, and the Communications Consumer Panel Member for the respective Nations are invited to attend Advisory Committee Meetings.
In Northern Ireland this is:
