Programme Directors: Economics & Economic Regulation

Requirements of the role

ONE PERMANENT ROLE, ONE FIXED TERM 12MONTH CONTRACT/SECONDMENT OPPORTUNITY

The economic regulation and competition policy team is a vital part of the Civil Aviation Authority’s (CAA) Consumers and Markets Group (CMG). The focus of the team is to protect consumers by ensuring that airports and air traffic service (ATS) providers do not exploit their market position. Understanding the impact of policy options and our actions is essential in ensuring we protect the interests of consumers while allowing a fair investment opportunity for investors.

The team has responsibility for the economic regulation of Heathrow Airport Limited (HAL), Gatwick Airport Limited (GAL) and the monopoly air traffic services provider for the UK, NATS (En Route) Plc (NERL). This includes the development, oversight and enforcement of price control arrangements and other licence obligations. The team is also responsible for discharging the CAA’s concurrent competition responsibilities relating to the provision of airport operation and air traffic services.

We are looking for a highly experienced senior level economist to play a critical delivery role as Programme Director in the CAA’s economic regulation of airports and ATS. Working closely with the Chief Economist and alongside other Programme Directors, this role will oversee the design and delivery of key programmes of work for the next price control reviews for HAL and NERL.

Reporting to the Chief Economist, the Programme Director will oversee the work of Heads and senior regulatory experts in the delivery and implementation of our work programmes to discharge our statutory duties through our economic regulation activities and supporting the wider organisation in policy development.

Our decisions have the potential to be contentious and may be subject to appeals and/or legal challenge. As a highly experienced economist and Programme Director, you will be responsible for ensuring our high-quality deliverables are informed by compelling analysis, robust and produced to a high standard.

This role offers the opportunity for professional development, through working within a highly experienced team and directly influencing and engaging with senior leaders. We understand that work life balance is key and would be happy to consider those seeking part time work and/or a job share as well as those seeking a full-time role. We operate (and are committed to) a hybrid working model, with the flexibility to work remotely for part of the week.

Core Accountabilities

As a Programme Director for economics and economic regulation, you will be responsible for:

• The leadership of and driving forward the price control programmes for airports and ATS. These programmes involve multi-billion pound decisions and come under intense scrutiny from external stakeholders and are subject to stakeholders having full appeal rights.
• Developing the price control strategy and ensuring the delivery of economic and financial analysis supports our work on price controls and other aspects of the regulatory frameworks for airports and ATS and is sufficiently robust given the materiality of the decisions, the intense scrutiny from stakeholders and their full appeal rights.
• Ensuring key deliverables are clear, on time, produced to a high quality, robust to external challenge and scrutiny, and supported by appropriate quality assurance processes. This includes reviewing and drafting consultation and decision papers that cover difficult technical issues as well as issues with the potential to generate intense media and stakeholder interest. It also includes the drafting and quality assurance of CAA board papers.
• Overseeing the work of a range of heads, economists, and policy advisors, and providing advice to the Chief Economist, the CAA Executive Committee and the CAA Board.
• Developing the overall approach to engagement at a senior level with key stakeholders on the range of price control issues, including Board level interactions with external stakeholders and in the CAA.
• Developing the strategy for using external technical advisors and consultants and ensuring the that their work is fit for purpose, dovetails with programme requirements and meets appropriate quality standards.
• Working closely with the Chief Economist and other Programme Directors to ensure work is fully coordinated across the wider ERCP work programmes.
• Development and empowering of team members, through opportunities to develop skills and training, as a senior leader in the team.
• Championing and demonstrating CAA values and D&I policy.

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