BBC to shed scores of top jobs in drive for £20m of savings
Executive directors face pay freeze
Published:
BBC TRUST chairman Sir Michael Lyons revealed yesterday that the corporation is to cull more than 100 management posts in a cost-cutting drive aimed at saving £20million.
The move will see the pay bill for 634 senior managers and nine members of the executive board – including director-general Mark Thompson – reduced by 25% over the next three-and-a-half years.
The BBC Trust said yesterday it had agreed to proposals put forward by the BBC executive.
The restructuring plans involve cutting the senior management numbers by 18% over the period up to the end of July 2013.
The trust also endorsed a pay strategy for senior managers joining the BBC, and agreed to proposals to freeze the pay of executive directors for a further three years, making a four-year freeze in all.
BBC Trust chairman Sir Michael Lyons said: “The trust challenged the BBC executive to review senior pay at the BBC.
“Mark Thompson and his team have responded with a comprehensive set of proposals that strike the right balance between ensuring the BBC can attract the best people to do the job, while ensuring maximum value for the licence fee-payer.
“It is right that, as a major public service organisation, the BBC shows leadership on this issue during difficult economic times.”
The policy also sets out a strategy for growing talent within the BBC to senior management ranks.
There should also be a “clear and explicit discount” against the private sector when setting the salaries of senior manager, according to the plans.
Mr Thompson will be in charge of implementing the proposals, with the trust monitoring what happens.
The director-general said he and every other senior manager needed to recognise that “we are in a different economic climate, that the media sector labour markets are depressed and that there are significant pressures on public finances”.
Mood
Gerry Morrissey, general secretary of the broadcasting workers’ union Bectu, warned the BBC not to impose a similar pay freeze on other employees.
“The trust should concentrate on lower-paid workers because there needs to be a redistribution of salaries,” he said. “We will not accept a pay freeze for our members, who only had a nominal rise this year.”
Shadow culture secretary Jeremy Hunt said the BBC had “missed an opportunity” to prove it was in tune with the public mood over high salaries. He said: “Public anger was focused not just on the management itself but on the salaries paid to senior executives.”
