Post by Teddy Bear on Jul 4, 2011 17:16:49 GMT
This article identifies powerfully at least one reason why senior executives at the BBC do not rate the salaries they award themselves.
The BBC's toxic inheritance
Telegraph View: At last there is a proper acknowledgement that the pay of senior executives at the BBC has become grotesquely excessive.
It is hard to believe that it has taken the arrival of a new chairman of the BBC in order for the Corporation to acknowledge that the pay of senior executives has become grotesquely excessive. Lord Patten of Barnes’s recognition on The Andrew Marr Show yesterday that this is a “toxic” issue for viewers and licence-fee payers was absolutely spot on and should have been dealt with long ago.
The argument often trotted out by the BBC, that it would be impossible to recruit talented senior staff without paying such inflated salaries, was always a canard. True, Mark Thompson, the director-general, did try to meet the concerns of viewers by accepting a cut in his own £800,000-plus a year pay, freezing salaries and removing some highly rewarded senior staff. But he never went nearly far enough: and if it is now accepted – as proposed by Will Hutton – that no one should earn more than 20 times the median salary in a public sector organisation, Mr Thompson could face a cut of more than £300,000 in his own pay.
Even in good economic times, such largesse with public money would be considered extravagant; in a time of austerity it merely confirmed the view that the corporation, insulated from commercial realities by a guaranteed income of £3.6 billion a year, had lost contact with the real world. As Lord Patten, a politician of great experience chosen to restore the BBC’s tarnished image, observed yesterday, it hardly conformed to a popular notion of what constitutes a public service ethos. Not only does working for the BBC at a senior level carry great cachet but it also means few commercial uncertainties, enviable job security and a generous pension.
It was never necessary to pump up salaries as well. Lord Patten should be given every support in his efforts to bring the BBC’s top managers back to earth.
Telegraph View: At last there is a proper acknowledgement that the pay of senior executives at the BBC has become grotesquely excessive.
It is hard to believe that it has taken the arrival of a new chairman of the BBC in order for the Corporation to acknowledge that the pay of senior executives has become grotesquely excessive. Lord Patten of Barnes’s recognition on The Andrew Marr Show yesterday that this is a “toxic” issue for viewers and licence-fee payers was absolutely spot on and should have been dealt with long ago.
The argument often trotted out by the BBC, that it would be impossible to recruit talented senior staff without paying such inflated salaries, was always a canard. True, Mark Thompson, the director-general, did try to meet the concerns of viewers by accepting a cut in his own £800,000-plus a year pay, freezing salaries and removing some highly rewarded senior staff. But he never went nearly far enough: and if it is now accepted – as proposed by Will Hutton – that no one should earn more than 20 times the median salary in a public sector organisation, Mr Thompson could face a cut of more than £300,000 in his own pay.
Even in good economic times, such largesse with public money would be considered extravagant; in a time of austerity it merely confirmed the view that the corporation, insulated from commercial realities by a guaranteed income of £3.6 billion a year, had lost contact with the real world. As Lord Patten, a politician of great experience chosen to restore the BBC’s tarnished image, observed yesterday, it hardly conformed to a popular notion of what constitutes a public service ethos. Not only does working for the BBC at a senior level carry great cachet but it also means few commercial uncertainties, enviable job security and a generous pension.
It was never necessary to pump up salaries as well. Lord Patten should be given every support in his efforts to bring the BBC’s top managers back to earth.