Alison is Head of Research, BBC performance at Ofcom, the UK’s media regulator. She oversees the range of research that Ofcom carries out to assess the BBC’s performance. She was previously head of media literacy research at Ofcom, with responsibility for various datasets about the media habits and opinions of children aged 3–15 and their parents, and adults aged 16+. Licketyspit’s focus on face to face engagement and interaction is a useful complement to the mediated communications that are increasingly the norm for both adults and children.

Alison’s favourite childhood games were: endless games of Monopoly with her older sister, gradually working out the best strategies and which properties to go for – Whitechapel and the Old Kent Road were often surprisingly useful!; obstacle courses around the garden when visiting cousins; an ongoing make-believe acting-out story with friends and sister revolving around the antics of a young child and her harassed parents – not a whole lot happened but that was part of its fun!