By Angela Harbutt
BBC Expenses claimed by the fat cats have been reluctantly released by the Corporation today. And much fun will be had with the array of items bought by the so-called senior management (fizz for Forsyth, roses for Ross, leaving do’s for …(well everyone who’s ever left by the looks…).
We’ve also had confirmed that the top 50 highest paid BBC employees collectively earned £13.6million in 2008 with 47 of the 50 earning over £190,000 (the PM earns £195,000).
I have heard the argument about the BBC needing to be the best and to do that they must pay “commerical rates”. But these are frankly NOT todays commercial rates for middle ranking managers. They are way way WAY over top. And let us not forget also that their fat BBC pensions look as safe as houses. Former Director of Audio & Music, JENNY ABRAMSKY walked away with a pension pot of £4 million. John Smith head of BBC Worldwide has a £3million+ pension pot. This just does not happen in the commercial sector.
As for Mark Thompson the Director General has a basic salary of £647,000 (+considerable benefits) . He may well say that if he was taking an “equivalent job” in the commercial market he would earn considerably more. But what private enterprise would not have sacked a CEO by now if they have stumbled from one crisis to another as he has…
The faked programme trailer about the Queen; rigging of phone-ins on shows including Blue Peter, Children in Need and BBCs Asian Network’s “Film Cafe”; deceiving people about the cost of phone-in votes (Comic Relief does Fame Academy);holding money back from charity phone-ins (Comic Relief); the catastrophic management of the Russell/Brand affair; the equally mismanaged sacking of Carol Thatcher;
Oh and the money….. shock at the salaries paid out to its “top talent” (about which the BBC remains firmly tight-lipped); criticism at the £100,000 a year spent on chauffeur driven cars to ferry the DG himself and his deputy a few miles to work each day; the widely condemned £88million (£50k per head) relocation bonanza planned for staff moving to Salford in 2011 which is now being erm… “reconsidered” ; the ill-advised £17.5 million paid out in staff bonuses last year as the rest of Britain faced financial disaster; the unbelievable £36Million budget overrun on websites (rather than sack anyone they simply decided to increase the total budget to £150 million, yeah.. very commercial) . It just goes on…
And whilst I have no problem with a company covering the costs of an executive having to return from an overseas holiday early in an emergency, why pay a deputy DG over £500,000 a year and then have to come back yourself to clear up the mess? The Russell Brand/Jonathan Ross matter was a 100% avoidable fiasco. Save yourself £500,000 and a whole stack of trouble. Sack the deputy (oh I forgot they dont do that at the BBC)
Mark Thompson’s days are now surely numbered. He looks and sounds out of touch, has singularly failed to maintain standards, and his “cost-cutting” measures look elitist to say the least.
But this is not about one man losing touch with reality – this is about an organisation that has lost touch. Got fat and greedy. It needs its role redefined,vast parts of it sold off and the remainder to be seriously pruned. Do much less and do it much better.
I have posted on the BBC only recently http://www.liberal-vision.org/2009/06/17/first-slice-off-the-sacred-cow/ and I know there are some fans of the BBC out there still. But fewer by the day I’ll wager.
Following last month’s Euro elections I’ve come across a fairly useful website: 
