David Cooke joined the Civil Service in 1977 and has worked in the Home Office, the Cabinet Office and the Northern Ireland Office. He has held six Director level posts. In the Home Office Broadcasting Department between 1987 and 1990, he was responsible for policy on radio, cross-media ownership, broadcast programme standards and constitutional issues. He helped set up the Broadcasting Standards Council and Radio Authority and coordinated the White Paper Broadcasting: Competition, Choice and Quality and the Broadcasting Act 1990. He has been Director of the BBFC - the regulatory authority responsible for film, DVD and video games classification - since 2004. The organisation has 66 employees including 23 Film and Video Examiners. The post is filled through open competition.