Independent Director — Utility Strategy and Portfolio Prioritisation

Review the whole portfolio

Ask management to distinguish essential obligations, risk-reduction work and discretionary development. Examine dependencies, common resource needs and the consequences of sequencing. The board should understand what must be deferred or stopped when a new priority is accepted, rather than simply adding it to an already constrained plan.

Challenge the basis for comparing unlike investments. Financial returns are relevant, but service reliability, asset exposure and public-interest responsibilities may require additional criteria. Those criteria should be explicit and applied consistently enough for decisions to be explainable.

Prioritisation and governance experience

Candidates should have senior strategy, finance, infrastructure, utility or board experience with capital and change prioritisation. They need the ability to analyse complex information and facilitate clear choices among legitimate objectives. Experience governing a portfolio through changing conditions is more relevant than presenting a strategy without subsequent responsibility for outcomes.

Oversight as conditions evolve

Review progress and emerging constraints across the portfolio. Ask whether changes in cost, capacity or service need alter the original priorities. Support disciplined adjustment rather than allowing every initiative to continue unchanged because it once received approval.

The director exercises judgement through the board's capital and strategy decisions, drawing attention to trade-offs that programme-level reporting may conceal. Executive teams remain responsible for developing and delivering the approved portfolio. This board office does not include a separate statutory assurance appointment or the authority to direct individual programmes.

Expected contribution includes a more coherent portfolio, realistic commitments and transparent reasons for difficult choices. Candidates must disclose interests involving contractors, advisers, investors and other relevant stakeholders. The board will expect independent judgement and the willingness to recognise when a decision to delay an attractive project is necessary to protect the delivery of more important service or resilience commitments already made.