Ofcom's first chairman Lord David Currie is to quit next year, the communications regulator has announced today. No replacement has been named.

Currie will unplug himself from the best-paid quango in all of quangistan at Easter. He will have completed almost seven years in the job, having started when Ofcom replaced Oftel in 2002.

His successor will be appointed by the Department of Culture Media and Sport and Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform via a process that will begin in September.

As well as Ofcom chairman, Currie is a cross-bench peer (he used to be a member of the Tory party and the the Labour party), chairman of the Trillium Investment Fund, an advisor to Unisys (not including their communications sector work, we're assured) and a member of the Dubai Financial Services Authority.

Currie was appointed to the part-time Ofcom chair by Patricia Hewitt. She now sits on the board of BT. Which is nice.

Deploying his very best Soviet rhetoric, he said in a statement: "I continue to enjoy working with such distinguished colleagues and I am delighted that we have been able to arrange an orderly succession process."

Also today, Ofcom promoted strategy partner Peter Phillips and competition partner Stuart McIntosh to the board. Phillips is an ex-BBC bigwig who flogged its Broadcast unit to private investors in 2005. McIntosh has a background in "boutique" management consultancy and is a former BT and IBM economics brain. ®

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