The BBC Inflated Pay-Off Scandal

[Teddy Bear]

Is anybody else sickened by the amount of rubbish TV there has been over Christmas? Bear in mind the BBC receive £3.7 BILLION a year, and judging by the poor quality given to the public that have to pay for it, the BBC do not seem to be applying much of this money to make or buy anything of worth.

But then reading the following article it becomes clear just why.

BBC faces official investigation after giving 200 managers £100,000 pay-offs
Almost 200 senior BBC managers have received payoffs of more than £100,000 each in the past three years, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

The National Audit Office is to examine the scale of severance packages at the corporation after MPs raised concerns that leaving the BBC was like "winning the lottery".

The corporation was criticised by MPs last week for its "cavalier" use of licence fee payers' money after admitting that George Entwistle, the former director-general, was given a payoff of £450,000, double the amount he was entitled to.

Figures obtained by The Daily Telegraph under Freedom of Information laws show that between 2010 and 2011 the cost of redundancy payments at the corporation more than doubled to £58m.

A total of 14 executives have been given payoffs of more than £300,000 each, worth a total of £6m, while 194 executives have been given £100,000 each.

The biggest payoff was awarded to Mark Byford, the former director of journalism, who was given £949,000.

Caroline Thompson, the former chief operating officer at the BBC, was given £670,000 when she left the corporation earlier this year.

The corporation also disclosed that an unnamed finance officer was given a £420,000 payoff, while Sharon Baylay, the director of marketing, was given a £392,000 payoff.

Richard Bacon, a Conservative member of the Public Accounts Committee, said: "For a long time the BBC has been rather too fast and loose with licence payers money.

"I think there are a lot of people who will find it difficult to understand why there are so many people at the BBC on such high salaries merited severance payments of this size."

In 2010, a total of 481 BBC staff and executives were given redundancy payments worth a total of £27m. Last year more 1,281 staff were given redundancy payments worth £58m, while in the first half of this year 270 staff received £14m.

The average payout for an executive made redundant at the BBC is £51,000.

In several cases, the payoffs were worth double the executive’s salary. Caroline Thompson earned £335,000 but received a £670,000 payoff, while an unnamed head of department earned £166,464 but enjoyed a £318,000 payoff. Mark Byford earned £474,500 but received a £949,000 severance package

The National Audit Office is also expected to examine Mr Entwistle's controversial payoff as part of its review.

Mr Entwistle resigned last month after Newsnight was forced to issue an “unreserved” apology to Lord McAlpine after it broadcast a report that wrongly accused a senior Conservative of being a paedophile.

Despite having spent just 54 days in the job, he left the corporation with a £450,000 lump sum on top of his pension, twice as much as he was entitled to under the terms of his contract.

Last month Lord Patten of Barnes, the chairman of the BBC Trust, blocked a request by the National Audit Office to conduct a rapid audit of the decision.

The decision was criticised by MPs, and the National Audit Office will now scrutinise the pay-offs as part of its New Year programme. A spokesman for the NAO said: “It is our intention that it [severance payments] will be in the programme.”

A source close to the BBC Trust welcomed the NAO investigation, adding that it would help inform the decisions of Tony Hall, the new director-general, when appointing new executives.

The source said: "We recognise that these numbers quite rightly appear extremely large to ordinary people.
“I'm very concerned that there should be a full NAO report to form a view of whether these payments are out of kilter.

“Tony Hall, the new director-general, is going to have to think about the implications of this. He is not going to want to hire a lot of people on terms which are overly generous. We don't want to replicate the problems of the past."

A spokesman for the BBC said: "Staff who are made redundant receive what they are entitled to in their contract. While redundancies involve costs in the short term in th long-term they represent significant savings. We offer our full co-operation with the National Audit Office."

[Teddy Bear]

The BBC has been criticised by the National Audit Office for paying out £25m to 150 senior BBC managers in severance payments.

No surprises here, it's what we knew anyway was going on, and judging by so many other things that describe the mindset within, it's what we would have expected.

Worth seeing the statement by the new Director General, Tony Hall regarding these excessive pay-outs:

Lord Hall of Birkenhead, the BBC’s new director-general, said he accepted the NAO’s conclusions and added: “The level of some of these payments was wrong.”

Lord Hall said the BBC had “lost its way on payments in recent years” and he has already announced moves to cap payments at £150,000 and improve the process.

He makes himself sound like he's just the man to deal with a problem such as this.
Shows what a short memory he has since this story emerged in January, just before he took up his new post, and he was the one who made it possible.

The art of soaking the poor taxpayer

By Quentin Letts

What a liberal approach they take to public money at the Arts Council.

At the end of a week which saw a splashy goodbye party thrown for the Council’s departing queen bee, Dame Liz Forgan — salmon nibbles and Left-wing self-congratulation all round, paid for by the taxpayer to the tune of £8,130 — there now comes news of more largesse at the State arts body.

A senior manager has been allowed to depart for a new job while still being on the Arts Council payroll. The arrangement sees her landing a six-figure redundancy cheque, even though she has effectively jumped ship for her new job.

The executive in question was Andrea Stark. In October, it was announced by the Royal Opera House’s Lord Hall (who is about to join the BBC as its director-general) that she had been appointed to run High House Production Park. It makes scenery for Opera House productions.

Rather than leave the Arts Council officially at that point, Miss Stark decided to take a six-month sabbatical. (A sabbatical is a fancy word for paid leave — nice work if you can get it.)

Serendipitously, this takes her through to March, when redundancy packages at the Arts Council kick in. She will qualify for a redundancy pay-out of more than £100,000. Kerching, kerching!

News of the Stark entitlements has been broken by a website called Arts Professional, which reports that Arts Council chief executive Alan Davey personally approved the deal.

The most recent Arts Council accounts put Miss Stark’s salary at £157,000. The Department of Culture has been in despair at the way Dame Liz’s regime at the Arts Council hosed public money at its managers.

Commenting on Miss Stark’s severance arrangements, a spokesman said without warmth: ‘It is a matter for the Arts Council to account for its spending.’

The Arts Council said that Miss Stark was receiving her legal entitlement.

Shows what little regard Hall has for the memory and intelligence of the public to think we had all forgotten his own largesse with public funds before he joined the BBC.

I knew when I first saw this story back in January it would come in useful sometime.

BBC gave inflated pay-offs to top staff, NAO says
The BBC's pay-offs to senior staff have breached its own guidelines by being higher than the employees were entitled to under their contracts.

By Christopher Hope

The National Audit Office, which has been reviewing redundancy and severance payments to senior figures, concluded they have given “poor value for money”.

In a three-year period up to December, the BBC spent £25 million on severance payments for 150 high-ranking staff, according to a report published on Monday.

In almost a quarter of the cases reviewed by the NAO, the BBC paid out more than the staff were entitled to under their contracts - which it said cost licence-payers upwards of £1 million.

Culture Secretary Maria Miller said the report had revealed “a culture of pay-offs that simply cannot be justified”, adding that "the NAO has exposed a culture of pay-offs that simply cannot be justified."

Analysis of the some of the deals found that the final sum paid to former BBC director general George Entwistle was more than £510,000 because he also received £25,000 in pay for an additional three weeks’ work after he was sacked.

In two cases the BBC knew that the outgoing staff had already found new employment before they had left and still paid them large sums. The BBC Trust said the NAO conclusions were “deeply worrying”.

There has also been disquiet from the Commons Public Accounts Committee about a redundancy payment to former chief operating officer Caroline Thomson last year who left with a £670,000 pay-off - more than twice her £330,000 salary.

The committee has already suggested that the money was effectively paid to “compensate” her for missing out on the director-general job.

A total of 228 senior managers left the corporation up to December 2012, 150 of whom received severance payments. The average severance payment for senior managers over the three-year period was £164,200.

The NAO said that the decisions to make payments higher than staff were entitled to had until recently “been subject to insufficient challenge and oversight”.

In its conclusions, the NAO said: “The BBC has breached its own policies on severance too often without good reason.

“This has resulted in payments that have not served the best interests of licence fee-payers. Weak governance arrangements have led to payments that exceeded contractual entitlements and put public trust at risk.

“The severance payments for senior BBC managers have, therefore, provided poor value for money for licence fee-payers.”

Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, said: “The BBC’s proposal to cap redundancy payments, announced in 2013 by the new director -general, is a signal of change for the better.”

Lord Hall of Birkenhead, the BBC’s new director-general, said he accepted the NAO’s conclusions and added: “The level of some of these payments was wrong.”

Lord Hall said the BBC had “lost its way on payments in recent years” and he has already announced moves to cap payments at £150,000 and improve the process.

He said: “It is important to understand what was happening here. The BBC was trying to get its senior management headcount down, and it succeeded, reducing it from 640 to 445.

“As the NAO acknowledges, we have saved £10 million over the period studied by the report and will keep on making savings every year.

“But we have to accept that we achieved our objectives in the wrong way. I believe the BBC lost its way on payments in recent years.

“I have already said that we will be capping severance payments at £150,000 and we have now begun to improve our processes. These payments were from another era and we are putting a stop to them.”

Anthony Fry, who chairs the BBC Trust’s finance committee said: “We asked the NAO to carry out this review following public concern about the size and frequency of severance packages at the Corporation, and this report shows that those concerns were justified.

“Although the BBC has achieved significant savings in its senior manager pay bill, some of the NAO's conclusions are deeply worrying, particularly the failure to follow agreed severance policies in a number of cases as a result of weak governance from the BBC Executive in the past.

“Such practices are unacceptable, and I have no doubt that they will, quite rightly, be met with considerable dismay by licence fee payers and staff alike. The Trust is clear that there cannot be a repeat of such a fundamental failure of central oversight and control.”

Gerry Morrissey, general secretary of the broadcasting union Bectu, said: "It is quite clear that a number of senior managers were given excessive payments to leave the organisation, which cannot be justified.

“However, this should not be seen as an opportunity to attack payments made to production staff and journalists who are leaving the BBC through no fault of their own."

[Teddy Bear]

James Delingpole lays into the BBC over this:

BBC a total waste of money: more evidence
By James Delingpole

The last two or three occasions I've been on Any Questions, Jonathan Dimbleby has introduced me by quoting some disobliging lines I have written somewhere or other about the BBC. "No single institution has done more damage to Britain," he reads out in a disbelieving, "we've-got-a-right-one-here, folks" voice which always guarantees a chortle from the studio audience.

Of course he thinks that way. He's a Dimbleby. But I'm right and he's wrong and here's yet another reason why:

The BBC has been criticised by the National Audit Office for paying out £25m to 150 senior BBC managers in severance payments.

Expressing outrage and disgust about this kind of epic waste and incompetence does not mean you're against the Shipping Forecast, the Today programme, beautifully shot nature documentaries from BBC Bristol, the Proms, Dr Who, lavish Glasto coverage et al, any more than being against the NHS means that you're for accident casualties lying untreated in the streets, old ladies being denied walking frames or children dying of leukemia. It simply means you've grasped the basic fact that public sector provision will always and inevitably lead to more waste, less efficiency, more tenured incompetence, more useless idiots on unjustifiably inflated salaries, and more cock-ups than would ever be tolerated within the private sector.

The National Audit Office (NAO) found that the BBC had breached "its own already generous policies on severance payments".
Amyas Morse, head of the NAO, said: "Weak governance arrangements have led to payments that exceeded contractual requirements and put public trust at risk.

The BBC Trust also came in for criticism, with the NAO noting "decisions to award severance payments that exceed contractual entitlements have, until recently, been subject to insufficient challenge and oversight".

"Weak governance arrangements". Yes. Is anyone remotely surprised by this? This is what happens when you get an institution featherbedded with free money (confiscated from the taxpayer or licence-fee payer) and utterly unaccountable to its customers. Over the years this has led to the creation of a top-heavy management culture imperiously aloof to the point of contempt over what its audience wants, likes or needs, and splendidly indifferent to the kind of efficiencies it would certainly need to adopt were it subject to the disciplines of the private sector. (And if you think the BBC's bad, check out its uglier more bloated sister ABC in Oz.)

The BBC Trust, as the NAO has twigged, is the definitive example of "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" In other words, as Juvenal would no doubt have said had he been around today, it's as useless as a chocolate fireguard.

[Teddy Bear]

'Oh goody. Daddy must have been sacked by the BBC'

[Teddy Bear]

Today we're told
Police could investigate BBC pay-offs scandal
The police could be called into investigate whether any fraud was committed by BBC managers who allowed one in four of their colleagues to leave with bigger payoffs than they were entitled to, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

In addition, we hear that one former BBC Controller who received £376,000 as a pay-off after working there for 29 years, has now returned the amount he got after tax.

Roly Keating, a former BBC2 controller, received a £376,000 pay-off when he left the broadcaster after a 29 year career last year.

However, last month he sent back a cheque for £187,500 - the sum he received after tax - to the BBC’s director general Lord Hall of Birkenhead.

He took the action after he was told by the public spending watchdog the National Audit Office found that the decision to award the money was “seriously deficient”.

In a letter to Lord Hall on June 9, he said: “You will understand that as a matter of principle I would never wish to benefit from a payment that could not be demonstrated to have been fully and appropriately authorised.

“I therefore enclose with this letter a cheque payable to the BBC, amounting to the full sum I received as severance payment after tax was deducted by the BBC at source.”

He was given the money last September even though his post was not being made redundant.

He was awarded a “termination payment” of £250,000 and six months’ pay in lieu of notice of £125,000. Mr Keating’s new role at the library has a salary in the £140,000 to £145,000 bracket.

The BBC had agreed to pay the money “on the grounds that it believed the individual would not otherwise have accepted the job offer, which had a lower salary”, according to the National Audit Office.

What I find curious is why he left a job where he was making £250,000 for one where he was only earning £140,000, especially as his existing post wasn't one that was being made redundant.

Could it be that life within the BBC world isn't so fulfilling, despite the inflated salaries?

I can understand anybody feeling dirty while working for them.

[Teddy Bear]

An opinion piece in the Daily Mail about the BBC mindset surrounding these figures.

BBC's attitude to our cash reveals so much

By Daily Mail Comment

For the key to the BBC’s instinctive bias against public spending cuts, look no further than its own staggering generosity to the charmed circle of its employees. (And no prizes for guessing who has to pick up the bills.)

In a devastating report, the National Audit Office reveals that in the eight years to last December, 7,500 Corporation staff walked off with severance payments of a blistering £369million.

Purely as a favour between friends, almost a quarter were paid more than their already over-generous entitlement. And inevitably, recipients signed gagging orders to prevent us from knowing where our money went.

Individual pay-offs take the breath away: £949,000 for deputy director-general Mark Byford… £680,400 for chief operating officer Caroline Thomson, to sugar the pill of being passed over for the top job…

Or take George Entwistle, the D-G who lasted only 54 days. He received £470,300 – double his entitlement, courtesy of BBC Trust chairman Chris Patten (always generous with other people’s money).

To his great credit, former BBC2 controller Roly Keating has returned his £376,000, after learning it had not been properly authorised. He, at least, sees that misusing public money is corrupt.

As for the rest of them, what do they care about the ethics of BBC largesse?

This is an all-too-familiar tale of a Corporation that has always treated money like water from a bottomless well, whether splashing out billions on grandiose buildings or £100million on a ‘completely valueless’ computer system.

Indeed, such cavalier profligacy is the public sector mentality writ large. And what is so disturbing is that it pervades and perverts the BBC’s supposedly impartial output, making it side with the spenders against the providers.

Never having to earn the cash shovelled into its lap, it simply cannot comprehend Margaret Thatcher’s first law: ‘You can’t spend what you don’t earn.’

How can we hope to restore balance to political debate, while by far our most influential news-provider remains so institutionally insulated from reality?

[Teddy Bear]

Besides the fact that Caroline Thomson, former BBC chief operating officer, got this £680k pay-off to begin with, and has stated categorically that unlike Roly Keating (above), she will not be returning it, some other facets bother me somewhat.

She now works three days a week as the acting chief executive of the English National Ballet.

I'm wondering how much influence Tony Hall, the latest BBC director general, but ex-chief executive of the Royal Opera House, had in this appointment. We've already seen that he's not averse to a bit of cronyism, Seems she hasn't yet found a full time job, and I doubt she will find anything that matches her previous salary if that's what she's waiting for.

She's not worth anything close to it!

Another thing is statements made by incoming BBC director of news James Harding, who having come from The Times had us hoping a more 'right-wing' viewpoint might help balance BBC output.

The BBC should stop apologising and start being more ambitious, its new head of news has said.
James Harding, the former Times editor who has been appointed director of news and current affairs at the BBC, said it had made its “fair share’’ of apologies, but licence-fee payers did not want an apologetic national broadcaster.
Mr Harding said: “The BBC has rightly made its fair share of apologies over the past year. I don’t want an apologetic BBC, I want an ambitious BBC.”
Asked if trust in the BBC was damaged beyond repair, he said: “One of the strong consequences of Savile and McAlpine is that it has shown a) that there is an extraordinarily resilient level of public trust in the BBC and b), that there are and have been such very high expectations of the BBC.’’

Clearly not - same ol', same ol'.

I'm hanging on to my £680,000 pay-off', says former BBC executive
A former BBC executive whose £680,000 pay-off was highlighted in a scathing official report has insisted she will not return any money, and claimed that the broadcaster prevented her from working her notice period.

Christopher Hope

Caroline Thomson, who was the chief operating officer, insisted that her compensation was “completely legitimate” and was justified because she still did not have a full-time job.

A Conservative MP today called on former BBC executives who received big pay-offs to consider following the example of Roly Keating, who sent back his £375,000. Rob Wilson, the MP for Reading East, said that he was considering asking police to investigate after one in four former BBC executives received more than they were entitled to. The National Audit Office, which wrote the report, calculated that £1 million too much had been spent on pay-offs.

Ms Thomson, 59, quit the BBC last year after she was overlooked as the new director-general. She now works three days a week as the acting chief executive of the English National Ballet. Her £680,400 settlement, which comprised salary in lieu of notice as well as a redundancy payment to reflect 17 years’ service, was highlighted by the public spending watchdog, although it was in line with the BBC’s policy at the time.

Challenged after addressing civil servants in west London today, she said: “My pay-off was entirely in line with my contract. I offered to stay and work my notice and it was refused. I tried to stay longer, I didn’t want to be made redundant, I wanted to stay, and that was not what they decided to do. I feel my pay-off was completely legitimate. I still have not got a full time job.”

The National Audit Office found that in the three years to the end of December, 150 departing executives were paid £25 million in compensation settlements. In a sample, one in four payments was found to have been in excess of contractual requirements. It said that payments were inconsistent and not subject to proper scrutiny.

Mr Keating, a former controller of BBC Two who is now chief executive of the British Library, was so appalled to be told that the approval of his pay-off had been “seriously deficient” that he returned the money. Asked whether other executives should return some of their pay-offs, Ms Thomson said: “Every case is individual.”
The BBC should stop apologising and start being more ambitious, its new head of news has said.

James Harding, the former Times editor who has been appointed director of news and current affairs at the BBC, said it had made its “fair share’’ of apologies, but licence-fee payers did not want an apologetic national broadcaster.

Mr Harding said: “The BBC has rightly made its fair share of apologies over the past year. I don’t want an apologetic BBC, I want an ambitious BBC.”

Asked if trust in the BBC was damaged beyond repair, he said: “One of the strong consequences of Savile and McAlpine is that it has shown a) that there is an extraordinarily resilient level of public trust in the BBC and b), that there are and have been such very high expectations of the BBC.’’

[Teddy Bear]

[Teddy Bear]

Some journalists from the Daily Mail have tried to question some of those from the BBC who received these inflated payments. Interesting to read their responses and a glimpse of the prevalent mindset.

No one will give payoffs back: Former BBC bosses refuse to hand money back... and the corporation will not ask for it either

• The payments were revealed in a National Audit Office report on Monday
  
• Some staff paid twice by working their notice period and being paid in lieu
  
• The Corporation say it will not be asking for any of the cash back

By Paul Revoir and Nick Fagge

Former bosses at the heart of the controversy over generous BBC pay-offs have refused to hand their money back.

Despite widespread anger over the huge scale of severance agreements, the Corporation will not be asking for any of the cash back - even if the pay-offs contravened the corporation’s own policies.

The payments were revealed in a National Audit Office report on Monday showed BBC executives authorised payments of £369million to departing staff.

But some members of staff were even paid twice, by working their notice period and still being paid in lieu of this period,
Former bosses at the heart of the controversy over generous BBC pay-offs have refused to hand their money back

Former bosses at the heart of the controversy over generous BBC pay-offs have refused to hand their money back

One Tory MP has already threatened to take any evidence of fraud in the payments to police.

Last night the BBC said there were no plans to try and recoup any of the severance payments which were found to be over generous.

And one of the executives named in the NAO report, Caroline Thomson, whose £680,000 pay-off was singled out, has said she will not be returning her money.

Ms Thomson left the BBC last year after she lost out to George Entwistle in the race to succeed Mark Thompson as director general. She has a three day a week role as acting chief executive of English National Ballet.

After Mr Entwistle took charge her post was made redundant. She had been with the BBC for 17 years when she left.

The National Audit Office report showed how she had received a £331,400 in redundancy money and a further £335,000 ‘pay in lieu of notice’. She was also handed £14,000 for ‘legal and outplacement costs’, which took the total severance deal to £680,400.

Speaking after she had addressed civil servants in West London this week, she said: ‘My pay-off was entirely in line with my contract. I offered to stay and work my notice and it was refused.

‘I tried to stay longer, I didn’t want to be made redundant, I wanted to stay and that was not what they decided to do. I feel my pay-off was completely legitimate. I still have not got a full time job.’

When the BBC’s former marketing chief, Sharon Baylay, who was given a £394,000 severance deal after just two years there, was asked about her controversial pay-off she refused to comment.

Speaking at her three-storey house in a leafy west London street, she said: ‘I don’t have any comment to make to you.’ She then slammed the door shut.

Similarly Mark Byford, the former deputy director general, also refused to speak about his payment of £949,000.

In the NAO report it was observed that the BBC had paid him the maximum possible salary in lieu of notice, despite negotiating a redundancy settlement eight months before he left.

Yesterday when asked about the payments he received from the BBC, after his 31 years there, he replied: ‘no comment’.

He then left his property in Winchester, Hampshire, and drove off in his dark blue Ford Galaxy.

Another of the most controversial payments saw an unnamed executive given an £866,288 severance deal, which the NAO said was ‘inconsistent’ with BBC policy on notice periods. An agreement was made with the boss that his job would go in 14 months’ time, but the BBC then also gave him a year’s pay in lieu of notice.

When the Daily Mail approached the individual it believes to be the recipient of the payment, they said: ‘As you will be aware from yesterday’s National Audit Office Report, certain staff names were anonymised by the BBC in order to comply with data protection law.

‘You will also know from the Report that there are clauses in their employment contracts which prohibit those individuals from disclosing details about their severance payments.

‘Given this, I consider I am unable to respond to the specific questions you have raised.

‘I would however like to make clear that any severance payments I received when I left the BBC after many years’ service were made in fulfilment of long-standing contractual entitlements and approved at the highest level.’

Ex-director general Mr Entwistle had already come under pressure to give back some of his pay-off in the aftermath of his resignation, after it was revealed he had been given a £450,000 severance deal, double what he was entitled to.

Lord Patten had said in December that the BBC had taken legal advice about whether it could take any money back, but he doubted there was a legal case for doing so.

The NAO report showed that Mr Entwistle in total had been given an exit package worth £486,500 which included public relations advice, legal costs and payment for private medical insurance.

One executive Roly Keating gave back his £376,000 pay out because he did not want to benefit from a potentially inappropriate payment.

A BBC Trust spokesman said: ‘The NAO had full access to investigate severance payments to senior managers at the BBC. We fully accept their findings. On the basis of the evidence in the NAO’s report we have no current plans to reclaim payments made to individuals.’

A spokesman from the BBC’s executive arm added: ‘The BBC takes full responsibility for these payments and has taken measures to ensure they cannot happen again.’

[Teddy Bear]

Grrrr

Revealed: BBC boss who landed £866k payoff and walked straight into another public-sector job

• Patrick Loughrey was given £866,000 when he left his role at the BBC
  
• Loughrey was ‘nations and regions’ boss of the corporation
  
• Included a £266,288 ‘pension augmentation’ as part of his ‘early retirement’
  
• Government spending watchdog said was ‘inconsistent’ with BBC policy
  
• The 57-year-old then started £200,000-a-year job as taxpayer-funded Warden of Goldsmiths University

By Nick Fagge

A former executive who left the BBC with an £866,000 settlement has found another highly paid public sector job.

Patrick Loughrey, 57, was given 12 months’ salary ‘in lieu of notice’ even though the former ‘nations and regions’ boss had agreed his exit 14 months earlier and worked out his notice period.

The payment – which the Government spending watchdog said was ‘inconsistent’ with Corporation policy – included a £266,288 ‘pension augmentation’ as part of his ‘early retirement’.

Mr Loughrey, who in April 2010 started a £200,000-a-year job as the taxpayer-funded Warden of Goldsmiths University, joined the BBC in 1984 as an education producer and left in 2009.

He told the Daily Mail any severance payments were ‘made in fulfilment of long standing entitlements’ and ‘approved at the highest level’.

On Monday, a National Audit Office report sparked a furious row as years of BBC pay-offs were revealed. In all, it handed staff £369million over eight years, the watchdog said.

MPs said the massive sum showed an ‘outrageous disregard for licence fee payers’ money’.

The National Audit Office said the BBC often breached its own guidelines and had ‘put public trust at risk’ by authorising the payouts, including £61million to senior managers.

Mr Loughrey said that he was unable to discuss his payment.

In a carefully worded statement this week, he said: ‘As you will be aware from yesterday’s National Audit Office report, certain staff names were anonymised by the BBC to comply with data protection law.

‘You will also know from the Report that there are clauses in their employment contracts which prohibit those individuals from disclosing details about their severance payments.

‘Given this, I consider I am unable to respond to the specific questions you have raised.

‘I would however like to make clear that any severance payments I received . . . were made in fulfilment of long-standing contractual entitlements and approved at the highest level.’ The former teacher took early retirement from his role as director of nations and regions in December 2009.

He had responsibility for BBC Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and English Regions and led 6,500 staff, with a £300,000 salary, an expense account and pension contributions.

Mr Loughrey was referred to by the National Audit Office as ‘Case Study 1’. It said his generous pay deal came after discussions with then director general, Mark Thompson, and deputy director general, Mark Byford.

It added the BBC ‘offered to work closely with the manager with early planning for moving to a career outside the BBC’.

He secured a year’s pay for redundancy, as well as a year’s pay ‘in lieu of notice’.

The report observed: ‘This case provides an example of a departing senior manager receiving their maximum pay in lieu of notice (£300,000) despite the fact that they worked their notice.’

The NAO report showed Mr Loughrey had found ‘alternative employment’ before leaving.

The report said the executive’s final salary was £300,000. The BBC’s website archive also shows that Mr Loughrey was paid £300,000 when he left.

Irish-born Mr Loughrey, who lives in Kew, south-west London, is now paid £206,000 a year by Goldsmiths University.

He did not deny the suggestion that he was the recipient of the £866,000 deal, but stuck to his carefully worded statement.

[Teddy Bear]

What does a guilty person do when caught in the headlight?
Most will try and talk their way out of it, and shift blame elsewhere.

It must be remembered that the head of BBC Trust, Patten, was responsible for hiring ex Director General George Entwistle in the first place. Then following the Savile and McAlpine scandals he still awarded him a full year's salary though he only worked for 54 days. Legally he only had to have paid 6 months, but felt it 'right' to give him the full year.

Now in the wake of the National Audit Office findings that the BBC have been overpaying and breaking their own rules with regard to these final pay-offs, as this article shows: BBC accused of 'casual disregard for public money' for not knowing about staff getting bigger payouts than they were entitled to



Here's what Patten claims in this BBC article on the subject:

Lord Patten: 'Shock and dismay' over BBC payments

Lord Patten: "It was a question of shock and dismay for us to discover how many had been beyond contractual"

BBC Trust chairman Lord Patten has called the size of severance payments made to senior BBC managers a matter of "shock and dismay".

Lord Patten and director general Lord Hall have been questioned by MPs on the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) over £25m paid to 150 outgoing executives.

Lord Patten said he was not told some payoffs went beyond contractual terms.

He told the committee he would "be as interested as you are why we didn't know".

The chairman said the trust was only contacted about two of the payments by former director general Mark Thompson and was assured they were within contractual terms and had been signed off by the executive remuneration committee.

So he gives Entwistle £1.3 MILLION of licence fee money for being an abject figure as DG, and when he supposedly finds this kind of highly inflated awards are common practice, he expresses 'shock and dismay'.

Let's not forget that it's his task as head of BBC Trust to make sure the licence fee money is spent properly, so how competent does he appear to you?

Fortunately Sir Roger Jones, a former BBC governor, has noticed and says "I don't think he's done a good job, there have been several serious questions about his judgement”, and is recommending that Patten quit.

Let's hope!

Call for BBC Trust chairman Lord Patten to quit

The BBC Trust chairman Lord Patten must stand down over severance payments made to senior managers at the corporation, an ex-BBC governor for Wales says.

Lord Patten and director general Lord Hall have been questioned by MPs on the Public Accounts Committee over £25m paid to 150 outgoing executives.

Lord Patten said he was not told some payoffs went beyond contractual terms.

But Sir Roger Jones said the chairman should have known and added it was time for him to step down.

"I don't think he's done a good job, there have been several serious questions about his judgement," he said.

"I think they should go back to rebuilding the governance system the way it was, there was nothing wrong with it."

The BBC was criticised by the National Audit Office (NAO) in a report published earlier this month saying the scale of the payments risked public trust.

The NAO noted that former BBC director general George Entwistle was paid £475,000 after he announced his resignation in November 2012. This included three weeks' salary worth £25,000 that was not part of his severance package of £450,000.

Lord Patten told the committee of MPs that the Trust was only contacted about two of the payments by former director general Mark Thompson and was assured they were within contractual terms and had been signed off by the executive remuneration committee.

He said he was not told some payoffs went beyond contractual terms, adding he would "be as interested as you are why we didn't know".

Lord Hall told the committee "the onus of responsibility for these decisions on these payments lies with the BBC."

"We got this wrong - we were overpaying. The fault lies with us - the executive of the BBC," he said.

'Severance payments'
The BBC Trust replaced the board of governors in the wake of the Hutton Report in 2004, which highlighted problems with the governors' dual role as both the corporation's champions and regulators.

The Trust said in a statement: "The charter clearly sets out that the BBC Trust is not responsible for operational issues like severance payments to individual managers within the BBC executive.

"However, it was the Trust that proposed the NAO to look into this issue across the BBC and as a result it is now being debated and dealt with.

"As for Lord Patten, he is fully committed to dealing with this and other issues to ensure that the interests of licence fee payers are fully represented at the BBC."

[Teddy Bear]

Patten claims he was never told of the excessive amounts of these payoffs, and expresses 'shock and dismay'.

So just what does he think his job is?
He takes a £110,000 salary for part time work there, and has earnings from other sources too. It seems every decision he makes is completely inept.

Even last October the Telegraph questioned his competency following the Savile and MacAlpine scandals in this article:
Chris Patten personifies everything that is wrong with the BBC elite
Lord Patten, the chairman of the BBC Trust, is no longer fit to carry out his role and should stand down now

It further states: More distressing still, however, is the conduct of Lord Patten. The chairman of the BBC Trust seems to lack any understanding of what his post entails. The corporation’s charter is very clear that his job is to invigilate BBC executives such as Thompson, Boaden and Entwistle, representing “the public interest, particularly the interest of licence fee payers”. It also insists that the BBC Trust “must maintain its independence of the Executive Board”. Yet Lord Patten seems to have ignored both these statutory duties.

Apparently there is evidence that former DG Mark Thompson DID inform Patten of the pay-offs to various executives. Since the amounts involved in many of these pay-offs were public knowledge Patten could and SHOULD have investigated their legitimacy himself - THAT'S HIS JOB!

Former BBC director general says the Trust DID know about Mark Byford's controversial £1m payoff

• Mark Thompson takes issue with claims Trust wasn't aware of package
  
• Former deputy director general Mark Byford left after 31 years of service
  
• Trust told PAC that members weren't always included in decision-making
  
• Thompson says he's 'looking forward' to telling MPs facts about payoffs

By Alasdair Glennie

The BBC’s former director general Mark Thompson yesterday accused its governing body of misleading MPs over a £949,000 severance payoff to one of its top executives.

A war of words – described by MPs as a ‘soap opera’ – exploded between Mr Thompson and the BBC Trust as emails emerged that cast doubt on the evidence given by its chairman Chris Patten to a Commons inquiry.

Lord Patten told the public accounts committee on Wednesday the Trust had not been given details of the massive payment to former deputy director Mark Byford, who was made redundant in 2010.

Asked whether he felt he should have been told the details of the deal, Lord Patten said: ‘Yes, and if you call in due course the previous director general of the BBC I will be as interested as you are as to why we didn’t know.’

However correspondence has now emerged showing Mr Thompson, head of the BBC executive at the time, informed the Trust that Byford and his colleague Sharon Baylay, director of marketing, would be given ‘maximum payments’.

An email from his office, dated October 8, 2010, stated they would not be served formal notice of their redundancy until ‘calendar year 2011’, despite being informed of their departure months earlier.

The revelation triggered a war of words between Mr Thompson and the Trust – prompting the public accounts committee chairman Margaret Hodge to brand the whole affair a ‘soap opera’.

She said: ‘There are serious accusations flying around about whether or not the director general was open and honest with the Trust, and counter-accusations about whether the Trust was open and honest with us.

‘It is becoming a soap opera, and we need to get to the bottom of it.’

Miss Hodge said she now plans to hold a fresh inquiry with a raft of current and former executives – including Mr Thompson and former chairman Sir Michael Lyons – expected to be called as witnesses.

The hearing follows a devastating report by the National Audit Office, which found the BBC handed out £369million to its staff over eight years. In it, the Byford deal was held up for special criticism.

The NAO found he was wrongly paid £474,500 for 12 months’ ‘pay in lieu of notice’, despite serving eight months of his notice period on full pay. It meant he was effectively paid twice for that period and pocketed almost twice what he was contractually entitled to.

Lord Patten admitted to MPs the Trust had been made aware of the pay-off in Mr Thompson’s email, but claimed it had been assured it was ‘within contractual terms’.

But yesterday, Mr Thompson, who left the BBC in September to become CEO of the New York Times Company, accused the Trust of ‘inaccuracies’. A close friend said he was ‘gobsmacked and surprised’ to hear Lord Patten’s evidence.

So who is telling the truth


Mr Thompson said the Trust was ‘fully informed in advance, in writing as well as orally, about the proposed severance packages for Mark Byford and [marketing director] Sharon Baylay’.

He added: ‘Specifically, they were told it was proposed that in both cases formal notice would not be served immediately but in the following year… I had made sure the Trust were aware of and understood all potentially contentious issues. The Trust had every opportunity to express any concerns about the proposals before they were approved.’

Trust member Anthony Fry had told MPs yesterday that members of the Trust were not always included in decision-making.

Mr Thompson, who had been expected to appear before the public accounts committee in November, is now likely to be called to give evidence earlier.

A Trust spokesman said: ‘The material being quoted today was shared with the NAO in the course of their review. They noted that the Trust had no role in the approval process but were being given this material for information and to provide assurance that payments to Mark Byford and Sharon Baylay were to be made on the basis of contractual terms.

‘The NAO’s conclusions were the basis for our evidence given to the PAC yesterday and like the NAO, we see nothing in this correspondence which disproves any of their conclusions.’

THE HEAD OF HR AND A QUESTION OF SALARY

The Corporation’s director of human resources was branded as ‘disingenuous’ about her own salary while giving evidence to MPs.

Lucy Adams signed off many of the most contentious pay-offs, including the Byford deal.

When Margaret Hodge quizzed her on her own £320,000 salary, she said she had accepted a ‘significant drop’ to join the BBC.

However, documents seen by the Daily Mail reveal she was given a ‘higher level of guaranteed salary’ than in her previous job as HR head of legal firm Eversheds.

Yesterday, Tory MP Richard Bacon said: ‘Do I find it surprising some witnesses are somewhat disingenuous? No.’

Minutes from the BBC remuneration committee in February 2009 said: ‘Although the total proposed is lower than the package Lucy can currently potentially earn, it has a higher level of guaranteed salary and lower element of variable pay.’

Miss Adams told MPs she felt ‘uncomfortable’ signing off the Byford deal, but said it was in line with a ‘pervading culture’, adding: ‘I think as an organisation we made a number of decisions which were not in the best interests of the licence fee payer.’

[Teddy Bear]

I see from an article recently in the Independent that Patten will be leaving as head of BBC Trust in 2015. Naturally I'll be happy to see the back of him, just wish it was a lot sooner - like now.

He admits that he's been in his position through 'dark days'. He doesn't however see himself guilty of any failings that contributed to it, which is typical of his complete lack of competence.

It is his job to make sure that the licence fee payer receives proper recompense. When you read the article below and see just where the BBC has failed to provide this, one can only wonder where was Patten while this was happening. Yet he speaks like he has no responsibility.

Fat idiot!

Lord Patten to leave after true scale of ‘dark days’ laid bare as BBC admits pay for top bosses soared by 60 per cent

Chairman of Trust to stand down in 2015 after ‘chaotic’ year of vast redundancy payouts and failure of £100m digital project

At the end of a year which the BBC admitted had been characterised by its “chaotic handling” of “some of the darkest days in our recent history,” the organisation revealed that it had actually increased its expenditure on senior staff by 60 per cent.

The embarrassing admission was the largely result of vast payouts made to departing BBC executives, leaving the new Director-General, Tony Hall, with a difficult presentational task at the launch of his first annual report.

As he also expressed regret over the waste of £100m on the bungled Digital Media Initiative (DMI), Lord Hall said: “From redundancy payments through to the failed DMI project, the BBC has not always been the steward of public money that it should have been.”

The amount spent on senior staff rose to £4.13m from £2.56m the previous year. Much of the costs were incurred in settlement packages for retiring executives including the former Chief Operating Officer Caroline Thomson who, according to notes in the annual report, received a tax-free cash lump sum of £251,770 in addition to the £683,000 she received as “compensation for loss of office” when she stepped down in September 2012.

Ms Thomson’s large pay-off was widely seen as being related to her being narrowly passed over for the Director- General’s role in favour of George Entwistle, who resigned 54 days later, following the Savile and Lord McAlpine scandals. He left with £470,000 compensation and a £1m pension pot. The BBC said that when “one-off” payments to departing executives were stripped out, the cost of senior staff had fallen by 8 per cent from the previous year.

Lord Hall was not at the BBC during the Savile crisis but Lord Patten was. In his foreword to the annual report, the chairman of the BBC Trust said the broadcaster had “seriously let down both itself and licence fee payers” by its “chaotic handling” of the Savile scandal and the “unforgivably poor journalism” by the BBC2 Newsnight programme during what he described as “some of the darkest days in our recent history”.

But also citing the excellence of the BBC’s Olympics coverage last summer, he used the opening words of Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities – “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” – to describe one of the most turbulent years the BBC has seen. Asked at a press conference if he had considered resigning, the peer said he would continue until the end of his four-year term and then stand down.

“I was appointed for four years and I think it would be pretty wretched of me, in any of those rows or difficulties, to have stepped down halfway through unless I’m told by my colleagues here that I have got it wrong and I think I owe it to the organisation and to them to see this through.”

The annual report identifies many areas in which the BBC is facing significant challenges, including concerns over the lack of public interest in current affairs output. “We are concerned about the gradual decline in audience numbers for current affairs programmes on television in recent years and about the degree of ambition and quality of current affairs programming.”

The report showed that the BBC website still has not fully recovered from falling public appreciation levels after significant changes were introduced to its format.

The broadcaster has made inroads in reducing expenditure on star presenters since the days when the salaries of big names such as Jonathan Ross prompted claims that it was being irresponsible with licence fee money.

The report revealed that spending on “top talent” has fallen by £4.2m in the last year to £12.3m, which represents 6 per cent of the broadcaster’s expenditure on all talent.

The cost of the BBC’s flawed purchase of the Lonely Planet franchise was also revealed. The travel guide business was sold by the BBC for £51.5m in March this year, representing an £80m loss on the BBC’s original 2007 purchase.

The BBC Trust found that “the original purchase and subsequent management of the business merit further scrutiny”, and it has told the executive to conduct a “review of lessons learnt” and report back.

BBC to launch five new HD channels

The BBC is to launch five further high definition channels to accompany its digital stations next year. The opportunity arises following digital switchover, which has freed up airwaves for further provision of HD.

The services will bring higher quality pictures for BBC News, BBC3, BBC4, Cbeebies and CBBC, adding about 250 hours of HD shows each week.

The announcement comes as Ofcom today said it would use spare capacity to create 10 HD channels for digital terrestrial viewers who used Freeview. Most of the HD programmes from the new channels will also be available on the BBC’s on-demand iPlayer service.

The BBC said more than half of UK homes were able to receive HD pictures, and this was expected to rise to 80 per cent by 2016.

In addition to the five new services, the corporation hopes to launch regional variations of BBC1 in HD for England and BBC2 versions for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

[Teddy Bear]

Most will recall the incident now named 'Crowngate', where a trailer for a documentary about the queen showed her apparently storming out of a photo shoot. It was later shown to have been falsified by editors, and ultimately the BBC1 controller for 2 years at the time, Peter Fincham, was the man to fall on his sword.

Now it emerges that he was handed a £500,000 pay-off.

This is the same man who revealed this little snippet:

The BBC chief who handed Jonathan Ross his infamous £18million contract was told he would ‘struggle to spend’ his channel’s budget.

Peter Fincham, who ran BBC 1 for two years, described the role as a ‘lovely job because ... you are given, bluntly, quite a lot of money to spend’.

He revealed that soon after taking over the channel in 2005, a senior accountant informed him that it was getting far more licence fee cash than it needed.

Mr Fincham, now in charge of ITV’s programming, admitted to Richard Bacon on Radio 5 Live that he had initially struggled to comprehend the finances involved with controlling BBC1, which costs £1.4billion a year to run.

He said: ‘The most memorable words said to me in my whole time at the BBC were in my very first few days when I was being talked through the budget, and I was very new to it and I didn’t really understand how it worked.

‘I was talked through it, and I said to my finance manager, “Well, I can’t really take all that in at one go, but just answer me one question – is it enough?” and she said, “Oh Peter! You’ll struggle to spend it”. I remembered that as long as I was at the BBC.’

Clearly the BBC found a way to spend it when he left too.

BBC accused of acting like a 'cosy cartel' after handing £500,000 pay-off to executive who quit in disgrace over doctored footage of the Queen

• Peter Fincham said footage showed Her Majesty storming out of photo shoot
  
• In fact the scenes were filmed as she arrived at the sitting
  
• News comes as government reopens investigation into BBC severance pay

By Alasdair Glennie

The BBC has been accused of acting like a ‘cosy cartel’ after revelations it handed a £500,000 payoff to an executive who quit in disgrace over doctored documentary footage of the Queen.

Peter Fincham, who ran BBC1 for two years, wrongly claimed a trailer showed the monarch storming out of a tetchy 2007 photo shoot with renowned American photographer Annie Leibovitz.

In fact the footage was of Her Majesty arriving for the sitting. The ensuing row, dubbed Crowngate, saw accusations fly between Buckingham Palace and the BBC and claims that the monarch had been turned into a laughing stock.

He quit three months later after being criticised by a damning report into the affair. At the time the BBC refused to say whether he received a payoff.

According to The Times, Fincham – who is now ITV’s director of television - was handed ‘about half a million pounds’ in severance pay when he left.

Tory MP Stephen Barclay, who sits on the public accounts committee of MPs, criticised the payment yesterday.

He said: ‘It is remarkable that someone who failed to stop a falsely edited trailer which smeared Her Majesty the Queen and was criticised in a BBC internal review should be able to walk away with a public money pay off rather than face disciplinary action.

‘It illustrates a cosy cartel at the top of the BBC who are acting like an out of touch politburo rather than the guardians of public money.’

It emerged yesterday the BBC’s new director general Tony Hall – who recently admitted the corporation had ‘lost the plot’ over severance pay - has asked his staff to give him a ‘detailed briefing’ about the Fincham deal.

The news came as the government spending watchdog revealed it has reopened an investigation into BBC severance deals.

Earlier this month, the National Audit Office revealed the corporation handed its staff £369million in golden goodbyes over eight years.

Its initial report only investigated a sample of 60 recent cases out of a total of 150. Nearly a quarter of those received more than they were contractually entitled to.

But following pressure from MPs, it has agreed to look into the files of 90 more senior managers given severance deals in the three years up to December 2012. It will present its findings to the public accounts committee before a second hearing into the debacle on September 9.

The BBC has so far resisted calls to identify the majority of cases identified by the NAO, citing data protection rules.

But the committee have threatened to use parliamentary powers to call director general Tony Hall before the Commons for an official ‘admonishment’ unless he complies with a parliamentary order to release the information.

The committee’s chair, Margaret Hodge MP, said she hopes to publish the names of all those who received more money than they were contractually entitled to.

In 2011, Fincham said his role at the BBC had been a ‘lovely job because ... you are given, bluntly, quite a lot of money to spend’. He was responsible for handing presenter Jonathan Ross his infamous £18million contract in 2006.

The BBC refused to discuss the details of the case yesterday, but said: ‘Whilst the BBC does not publicly discuss individual contracts, the BBC director general Tony Hall has asked for a detailed briefing about the facts of this reported case as soon as possible.’

A spokesman for Fincham said: ‘He is not in a position to comment.’

[Teddy Bear]

With the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) reporting that civil servants have been using private emails to conceal the 'irregular' pay-offs they have been stealing from the public purse, it shows the same mindset and 'echoes' of the BBC.

£369 MILLION over 8 years paid out by the BBC to senior managers is no small sum. Can we expect action from the lily livered government besides just criticism?

[Teddy Bear]

It's emerged that the BBC boss who was forced to resign over the ‘Sachsgate’ scandal was given a secret six-figure payoff,

The BBC rewards crass sub-mediocrity.

SECRET SIX-FIGURE PAYOFF FOR WOMAN BEHIND SACHSGATE PHONE SCANDAL

The BBC boss who was forced to resign over the ‘Sachsgate’ scandal was given a secret six-figure payoff, writes Miles Goslett.

Lesley Douglas, the former controller of Radio 2, received the payout even though she personally authorised the broadcast of the prerecorded radio show in which Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross left obscene voicemail messages for Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs.

MPs last night branded the payment an abuse of licence fee payers’ money.

The radio show, which aired in October 2008, sparked more than 42,000 complaints, an Ofcom fine of £150,000 and the resignations of Mr Brand and Ms Douglas.

Tory MP Stephen Barclay last night said: ‘It can’t be right that the senior executive responsible for one the biggest BBC scandals in recent years has been rewarded with a six-figure payoff.’

Ms Douglas declined to comment.

A BBC spokesman said: ‘The BBC does not publicly discuss individual contracts.’

[Teddy Bear]

I wonder how much the BBC will now spend justifying their £60M pay-offs over the last 8 years, in light of a newly launched police investigation into allegations of misconduct in public office because of it.

In about as blatant an example of disingenuous as one can get, just look at what that tub of lard Lord Patten has to say about it:

Last month the BBC Trust chairman Lord Patten said he was “shocked” at how many senior staff were given hefty pay-offs which broke the corporation’s own guidelines.

Lord Patten said it was “a question of shock and dismay for us” when it emerged that staff had been paid more than they were contractually owed in some cases.

He must have forgotten that it was he himself who approved the Entwistle pay off, well in excess of what he was entitled to after only 54 days as director general.

But then the whole of BBC output relies on the fact that the public have very short memories.

Met Police's fraud squad investigating BBC pay-offs scandal
Detectives from Scotland Yard’s fraud squad are investigating senior members of the BBC’s leadership over allegations of misconduct in public office, The Telegraph can disclose.

By Christopher Hope

A team of officers from the Metropolitan Police has been asked to gather information to determine whether pay-offs to senior managers amounted to fraud. A quarter of senior managers received more than they were entitled to in the past three years.

The National Audit Office concluded, in a report published on Monday, that the BBC paid out £60 million in severance payments to its senior managers in eight years between April 2005 and the end of March this year.

Of that figure, £25 million went on severance payments for 150 high-ranking staff in the three years to December. A quarter of senior managers received more than they were entitled to, leaving the taxpayer with an unnecessary bill of £1 million.

Mark Thompson, the former director-general, is due to give evidence in front of MPs over the scandal next month. Other executives who were caught up in the scandal include Roly Keating, who now runs the British Library.

Last month, it emerged that he sent back his £376,000 payoff cheque to the broadcaster after he found out it had not been authorised properly.

A finance case which had been prepared for the payment stated the deal had been agreed by Mark Thompson, the director-general at the time, and Lucy Adams, the BBC’s human resources director.
According to the NAO report, both executives “now accept that there was no such agreement and that the finance case is wrong on this point”.

The NAO also found that George Entwistle, the former director-general, was paid £25,000 more than was legally required when he was sacked with an agreed pay-off of £450,000.

In evidence to MPs last month, Miss Adams, who is paid a salary of £320,000, said that Mark Byford, a former deputy director-general who walked away with almost £1 million, had an expectation of a payment in lieu of notice of 12 months because it had become “custom and practice” at the BBC.


Mark Rowley's letter to Rob Wilson MP

Mark Rowley, Assistant Commissioner, Specialist Crime and Operations, confirmed in a letter to Rob Wilson MP that the Met has officers looking into the allegations. He said that following Mr Wilson’s “allegations of misconduct in a public office and fraud in relation to severance payments and wide benefits for senior BBC managers, officers from the Fraud Squad, Specialist, Organised and Economic Crime Command have been tasked to conduct an assessment of the information provided in your letter”.

The letter, dated Aug 2, added: “We are currently gathering information to assist with our assessment and a decision will be made as to whether we progress to a full investigation in due course.”

Mr Wilson had asked the police to investigate “possible case(s) of misconduct in a public office arising out of matters considered in the National Audit Office report”.

Misconduct in public office, according to the Crown Prosecution Service, “carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. It is an offence confined to those who are public office holders and is committed when the office holder acts (or fails to act) in a way that constitutes a breach of the duties of that office”.

Mr Wilson told The Telegraph: “The BBC should never have got itself into a position where the Fraud Squad is looking at an investigation. However, something is not right about these huge pay-offs and potential wrongdoing needs to be ruled out. The police are the only organisation in a position to do that.”

The NAO found in its report that BBC pay-offs to senior staff had breached its own guidelines by being over-generous and have “put public trust at risk”.

In his letter to Sir Bernard Hogan Howe, dated July 11, Mr Wilson set out how the NAO had found that one severance payment was “described as 'seriously deficient’” while another appeared to be an “abuse” of rules governing notice periods.

He wanted the Met to “consider carefully the case for further investigation to see if there may have been any instance of fraud, misconduct in public office, or similar offence committed in respect of the matters discussed in the NAO report.

“It would appear to me that from having read the report in detail that there may have been collusion by BBC staff to enrich departing colleagues by manipulation or abuse of the redundancy and termination processes.”

He said: “The need for a thorough investigation is strengthened by the refusal of the BBC to consider disciplinary action against those responsible for this apparent misuse of public money.”

Last month the BBC Trust chairman Lord Patten said he was “shocked” at how many senior staff were given hefty pay-offs which broke the corporation’s own guidelines.

Lord Patten said it was “a question of shock and dismay for us” when it emerged that staff had been paid more than they were contractually owed in some cases.

A BBC spokesman said that the broadcaster had “not been contacted by the police in relation to severance payments”. The spokesman added: “The NAO report on BBC severance payments found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing.”

[Teddy Bear]

Here's a breakdown courtesy of the Daily Mail of those behind many of these pay-offs. Notice again Patten's culpability.

THE BOSSES IN CHARGE OF THE GRAVY TRAIN

LUCY ADAMS

BBC director of human resources. Appointed June 2009, salary £320,000.
The BBC’s human resources chief, who is still in her post, approved all compromise agreements over £75,000. In September, she approved a £680,400 payment to former chief operating officer Caroline Thomson.

MARK THOMPSON
Former director general. Left in September 2012, salary £670,000.
He personally approved some of the most controversial payments in the report including £866,288 to an unnamed ‘departmental director’.

LORD PATTEN

BBC Trust chairman. Appointed April 2011, salary £110,000.

The former Tory Party chairman approved the controversial £470,300 pay-out to BBC director-general George Entwistle, double what he was entitled to. The Trust also approves the remuneration strategy for members of the BBC’s executive board.

MARCUS AGIUS

Former BBC non-executive director. Left in November 2012, salary £47,000.
The former chairman of Barclays resigned from the bank over the Libor interest rate fixing scandal. He chaired the BBC’s executive remuneration committee, which was responsible for signing off severance payments for executive directors.

ZARIN PATEL

Chief financial officer. Appointed 1998 due to leave this Friday, salary £322,000.
The outgoing finance chief of the BBC was jointly responsible for signing off, with HR chief Lucy Adams, severance payments exceeding £500,000.

[Teddy Bear]

This article pretty much sums up the prevalent greed at the BBC. How they relate to their responsibility in upholding the trust licence fee payers place in them, shows their contempt and complete disregard to do so.

BBC was warned about fat cat pay four years ago... but brushed it under the carpet

• The BBC Trust commissioned a study of basic salaries back in 2009
  
• Bosses salaries found to be on a par with those at top FTSE 100 companies
  
• But the BBC kept the report under wraps until an FOI request was made
  
• MPs have condemned the BBC for not publishing findings earlier
  

By Alisdair Glennie

The BBC suppressed an independent review of its executive pay which found its top brass were paid up to three times more than their public sector counterparts.

Despite being warned four years ago that the pay of the director general and his lieutenants far outstripped what they might earn in equivalent jobs in the civil service, corporation bosses failed to take immediate action to curb top-level pay.

A study by accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) for the BBC Trust in 2009 found their basic salaries were instead on a par with the chiefs of aggressively profit-making FTSE 100 companies, despite the fact they are paid with licence fee payers’ money.
What the Bosses are paid

Instead of risking embarrassment by publishing it in full, BBC bosses kept the report under wraps until it was released under Freedom of Information laws.

Last night, MPs condemned the BBC for failing to publish the explosive findings earlier and said it illustrated a ‘fill your boots at public expense’ culture at the top of the corporation.

Laying bare the true extent of BBC largesse, the newly released documents reveal:

The BBC’s executive remuneration committee was warned former director general Mark Thompson’s £651,000 basic salary was more than three times what he would be able to earn in an equivalent role in the civil service, Army or judiciary.

The corporation’s top ten earners, including former deputy director general Mark Byford on £609,000 and former chief operating officer Caroline Thomson on £430,000, were paid on average more than twice their public sector counterparts. On average, basic salaries were only 4 per cent lower than the private sector.

The BBC’s executive remuneration committee decided to use high-paying ‘commercial public sector’ institutions – such as Network Rail or the Tote – as a benchmark for pay rather than more frugal ‘core’ public sector examples, such as the civil service. Minutes show they realised the decision was ‘likely to be contentious’.

Similar reviews have been carried out every year since 2009. They show executive salaries still exceed the agreed benchmark, but the BBC has redacted the documents to prevent the public from knowing by how much.

Last night Conservative MP Stephen Barclay, who sits on the influential public accounts committee of MPs, said executives would be asked to explain why the report was suppressed at its next hearing in September.

The PwC report was commissioned by former BBC Trust chairman Sir Michael Lyons in April 2009 in response to widespread dismay at senior staff bonuses that year.

Instead of publishing the report, the BBC’s executive remuneration committee – including Mr Thompson – discussed its findings in private and never published it in full.

At a meeting in July 2009, the committee decided BBC pay should be aligned with executives in the commercial public sector meaning the BBC could justify paying its executives far higher salaries.

Yesterday a BBC spokesman justified the decision to benchmark its pay against the commercial public sector by saying the corporation needed to compete for talent with commercial media rivals.

But Tory MP Stewart Jackson, who also sits on the public accounts committee, said: ‘There seems to have been a culture under the previous director general of “fill your boots at public expense and the expense of the licence fee payer”. The gravy train has finally hit the buffers. Those responsible must be held fully accountable for it.’

A BBC spokesman said: ‘A great deal has been done since 2009 to address issues around executive remuneration at the BBC.

‘Following this review, the senior management paybill has been reduced by more than 30 per cent, the director general’s salary has come down almost 33 per cent, while the ratio of director-general’s salary to median pay has fallen from 16.8 to 11 and bonuses have been permanently withdrawn from executive directors.’

[Teddy Bear]

The plot thickens!

It begins with: The corporation’s official auditor KPMG was asked by director general Tony Hall to look into historic golden goodbye deals following last month’s report by the National Audit Office, which found the BBC handed staff £369million over eight years.

Now most moral beings would believe that the reason Hall was asking for this review was to see if there had been any wrong deals - which we know there were.

What we see instead is the BBC is going to try their best to justify all these payments - £369 MILLION over 8 years. The company they are using to do this review would have been the same one that has been advising top earners at the BBC to become an independent company thus avoiding taxes.

One could think that Hall has only come into this sphere for a short time, but judging from the following story they are all an 'old boys' (and girls) network.

The firm investigating the BBC severance deal scandal has spent thousands of pounds wining and dining some of the executives responsible for the most controversial payoffs, it has emerged.

If that wasn't bad enough - my attention was drawn particularly to this snippet: In 2011, Miss Patel attended a Coldplay concert at London’s O2 Arena as a guest of KPMG associate partner Karen Wightman. The same year, she was their guest at the Royal Opera House. The BBC's group finance director Beverley Tew has also enjoyed concerts at the firm's expense. She saw blind Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli in concert...

And guess who was running the Royal Opera House at the time - yes our very own Tony Hall, which Wikipedia tells us: His salary increased from £165,000 to £205,000 between 2010 and 2011, making him the highest paid Chief Executive of any charity in the UK.[13] His emoluments for management of the Royal Opera House exceeded £390,000 per annum during the years ending 29 August 2010 and 2011 respectively

Recent news tells us that charity executives taking vast salaries has become quite commonplace, but we can see who led this.

Any surprise Patten didn't need to advertise for the post of the new Director General?

BBC bosses responsible for controversial payoffs are wined and dined by firm probing severance pay deals

• KPMG lavished some of the key figures in the scandal with hospitality including concert tickets
  
• Other treats included dinners at top restaurants, tickets to tennis matches and the Royal Opera House
  
• But the BBC says there are 'strict guidelines in relation to accepting corporate hospitality and no guidelines have been broken'
  

By Alasdair Glennie

The firm investigating the BBC severance deal scandal has spent thousands of pounds wining and dining some of the executives responsible for the most controversial payoffs, it has emerged.

The corporation’s official auditor KPMG was asked by director general Tony Hall to look into historic golden goodbye deals following last month’s report by the National Audit Office, which found the BBC handed staff £369million over eight years.

But his decision was questioned yesterday after it emerged the company lavished some of the key figures in the scandal with hospitality including concert tickets, champagne and meals at top restaurants.

The BBC’s former chief financial officer Zarin Patel, who stepped down last month, accepted concert tickets on at least four occasions from KPMG. Along with human resources director Lucy Adams she also attended a dinner hosted by the firm at a top London restaurant.

In 2011, Miss Patel attended a Coldplay concert at London’s O2 Arena as a guest of KPMG associate partner Karen Wightman. The same year, she was their guest at the Royal Opera House.

Miss Patel and Miss Adams were jointly responsible for signing off all BBC severance payment deals over £500,000. Miss Adams personally approved some of the most controversial deals including a £1.02million payment to former deputy director general Mark Byford.

The BBC's group finance director Beverley Tew has also enjoyed concerts at the firm's expense. She saw blind Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli in concert and in 2010 she saw Rod Stewart perform at the O2 Arena

Other executives to benefit from KPMG’s hospitality include Miss Adams’ deputy in the human resources department, Rachel Currie, who was taken to watch a tennis match by the firm.

The BBC’s group finance director Beverley Tew has also enjoyed concerts at the firm’s expense.

Last year, it took her to a performance by blind Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli and in 2010 she saw Rod Stewart perform at the O2 Arena.

Tory MP Rob Wilson wrote to the head of the National Audit Office this week asking whether KPMG ‘ought to have picked up on and highlighted the widespread breach of policies in the granting of severance payments and wider benefits by the BBC to departing senior managers.’ He added: ‘I am concerned KPMG might not be a suitable party to carry out such a review.’

A KPMG spokesman said: ‘An audit only looks at whether payments have been accounted for and disclosed appropriately in the financial statements, not whether there have been any breaches of policy. Occasional proportionate hospitality is a normal part of working life.’

A BBC spokesman said: ‘The BBC has strict guidelines in relation to accepting corporate hospitality and no guidelines have been broken. Neither Zarin Patel, Lucy Adams, Rachel Currie or Beverley Tew were involved in appointing KPMG to undertake the review of severance payments.’

[Teddy Bear]

2 weeks to go before the cap on payoffs comes into force and it appears 11 managers have received payoffs worth another £2 Million.

Besides the obvious, I wonder too how many of those made redundant for these inflated payments will also be invited back as advisers and receive an additional sum.

BBC pays out more than £2m in payoffs weeks before cap deadline

The BBC has agreed a new round of payoffs to 11 senior managers worth around £2m - just two weeks before the deadline for a payoffs cap.

By Ben Bryant

Each employee will pocket more than £150,000 a fortnight before Lord Hall, the corporation's director-general, imposes a £150,000 cap.

The corporation told The Sunday Times: "The redundancies of 11 managers were already in train before this announcement was made and could not be undone."

“These cases have been approved by the BBC’s senior management remuneration committee and the individuals will leave by the end of the month.”

Rob Wilson, Conservative MP for Reading East, said the deals were “another kick in the teeth for BBC licence fee payers and ordinary BBC staff facing budget cuts”.
He argued that the corporation should have found new jobs for the executives.

He said: “Given the public furore caused by the recent revelations about management payoffs, one would have thought that the BBC might have made some attempt to redeploy these executives, rather than paying them hundreds of thousands of pounds to do nothing."

One of the 11 received a payment of £180,000. It is understood that the BBC found new jobs for a further four executives who would otherwise have received redundancy payments of more than £150,000.

Former BBC director-general Mark Thompson, who was responsible for reducing the corporation's manager headcount, is expected to be questioned next month by a Commons committee over the large payoffs.

The Metropolitan police said on Friday that it would not conduct a criminal investigation into whether the BBC broke the law by giving senior managers excessive payoffs.

The National Audit Office (NAO) had revealed that the corporation paid £60m in severance to senior managers over eight years.
In a quarter of the cases it examined, the NAO said the managers received more than they were entitled to under their contracts.

[Teddy Bear]

You can read between the lines on the following story.

Lucy Adams, one of the top BBC executives responsible for many of the excessive pay-offs is to leave. She had been heavily criticised last month in a hearing by the Commons Public Accounts Committee for her actions.

Now according to her, 'By next spring I will have been at the BBC for five years which feels like a good time to try something new'.

A whole 5 years, on a £320,000 annual salary, and no mention if she has found a new job when her notice expires. She also will not be receiving a severance package.

Naturally the BBC tell us all is sweetness and light, and the pay-off scandal has nothing to do with her leaving.

BBC executive under fire for controversial pay-outs to senior managers resigns

• Lucy Adams, HR Director, was blasted in probe into huge payments
  
• The broadcaster was accused of 'cronyism' over redundancy packages
  
• A quarter of managers received more money than they were entitled to

By Sam Webb

The BBC's HR director Lucy Adams, who was heavily criticised by the Commons Public Accounts Committee in a hearing last month over excessive payments to departing executives, is leaving the corporation, it said today.

Ms Adams, who is paid a salary of £320,000, will leave at the end of the financial year in March 2014 without any severance pay and will work her notice period.

She was forced to reject accusations the BBC was engaged in 'cronyism' during the hearing but admitted to MPs there was a culture at the corporation 'which clearly did not deliver value for money'.

The committee called Ms Adams along with director-general Tony Hall and BBC Trust chairman Lord Patten to give evidence after a National Audit Office (NAO) report showed huge payments, of hundreds of thousands of pounds in some cases, were made even though executives were not always entitled to the money.

Ms Adams said: 'I have been discussing my decision to leave the BBC with Tony Hall for some time now.

'By next spring I will have been at the BBC for five years which feels like a good time to try something new.

'It has been a great privilege to lead the BBC’s People division. The BBC is a unique institution and I am extremely proud of the work the team has achieved in spite of the challenges along the way. I look forward to continuing that work with Tony and the Executive Board in the coming months.'

BBC Director-General, Tony Hall, said: 'I am enormously grateful to Lucy for all her work and I will be very sorry to see her go next spring. She has done a great job and contributed a huge amount to the BBC.

'I am pleased that, in the short term at least, she will continue to help me simplify the way we do business in the BBC so that we can spend more time concentrating on our programmes and services.'

A spokesperson for the BBC denied she was leaving because of the pay-off furore, adding that it was a 'personal decision' to leave.

Earlier this month the Metropolitan Police said they will not investigate BBC bosses over claims the law was broken when huge pay-offs were given to senior managers as there was 'insufficient evidence of dishonesty or criminal misconduct to begin a criminal investigation'.

It comes after the Corporation called in external auditors to widen the search for excessive severance payoffs made to its senior executives.

[Teddy Bear]

With reference to the article above I am also posting this one.

I don't know how accurate are the claims of the NUJ, in my experience they're as immoral and unethical as the BBC, but I'll include it here for future reference.

Union demands that BBC reopens pension negotiations over 'dirty tricks'
The BBC today faced trade union demands to reopen negotiations over changes to its staff pension scheme after claims of a dirty tricks campaign by the corporation’s human resources department.

By Sam Marsden
The National Union of Journalists called for a return to the bargaining table following allegations that HR officials used “underhand” tactics, including “monitoring” a union representative’s emails, during the bitter industrial dispute in 2010 over the BBC’s attempts to slash its future pension liabilities.

The move came a day after Lucy Adams, the BBC human resources director criticised over huge pay-offs to former executives, announced she was standing down. She has denied involvement in the alleged smear campaign.

Michelle Stanistreet, the NUJ's general secretary, said: "[BBC Director-General] Tony Hall must now ensure that proper industrial relations are restored and that his staff are treated fairly and with respect.

"He can start by ensuring those responsible for this huge breach of trust are dealt with. It is also vital now that the whole pension settlement is reopened and conducted in good faith."
Any resumption of the industrial dispute over the controversial pension changes could see a repeat of the 48-hour strike that disrupted television and radio programmes in November 2010.

Rob Wilson, the Conservative MP for Reading East, warned that reopening talks about the BBC’s pension scheme might end up costing licence fee payers hundreds of millions of pounds.
He said: "It would be particularly galling if BBC managers were found to be engaged in bullying and dirty tricks against those campaigning for their pension rights, while at the same time being too weak to stand up to the greedy demands of the Corporation's top brass.”

A BBC spokesman said: "In light of a significant pension deficit and following extensive consultation with staff and trade unions in 2010 the BBC made changes to the pension scheme to help make it affordable and sustainable for the future. The BBC does not intend to revisit the reforms previously agreed."

The BBC said claims by the NUJ that Ms Adams orchestrated a smear campaign against any of the corporation's staff were “false and without foundation".

[Teddy Bear]

Gggrrrrr!

BBC secretly gave executive a £687,000 goodbye at height of pay probe: Director of vision's huge sum was never disclosed

• Jana Bennett was made redundant from BBC Worldwide
  
• She was even given £55,000 that she was not entitled to
  
• Her deal was never disclosed prompting accusations of a cover-up

By Alasdair Glennie

The BBC secretly handed one of its departing executives almost £700,000 just months before the severance payments scandal broke this year, it emerged yesterday.

The corporation’s former director of vision Jana Bennett pocketed the huge sum when she was made redundant from its commercial arm, BBC Worldwide.

She was even given £55,000 that she was not contractually entitled to.

When the payment was signed off in March official investigators were in the midst of a detailed probe into severance pay.

But her deal was never disclosed to either the Government spending watchdog or a subsequent Commons hearing, prompting accusations of a cover-up.

It also emerged that one in seven of the departing BBC executives were paid more than they should have been to quit.

The National Audit Office report states: ‘Across all 150 severance payments to senior managers in the three years to December 2012, the BBC paid more salary in lieu of notice than it was contractually obliged to in 22 cases, at a total cost of £1.4million.’

Last night, Tory MP Stephen Barclay, who sits on the Public Accounts Committee of MPs, said Miss Bennett’s payoff was ‘scandalous’.

He said: ‘The culture which allowed a cosy arrangement between executives – with one signing off another’s payoff in order to then subsequently benefit from a similar one – is now shown to be even worse.

‘There appears to have been a deliberate effort to conceal this particular payoff from the National Audit Office.’

In its original damning report in July, the NAO found the BBC paid all levels of staff a total of £369million in severance pay over eight years.

It prompted accusations of ‘corporate fraud and cronyism’ and led director general Tony Hall to admit the BBC had ‘lost its way’.

Following pressure from MPs the NAO reopened its investigation and yesterday published a ‘supplementary note’ to the report containing details of Miss Bennett’s deal.

Miss Bennett was in charge of the BBC’s television output for nearly a decade – on a salary of £415,000 – before she was moved to the corporation’s profitable commercial wing in 2011.

During her time as director of vision, she came under fire for her handling of the 2007 ‘Crowngate’ scandal, in which it was wrongly claimed the Queen had stormed out of a photoshoot filmed by the BBC.

The debacle saw then-BBC1 controller Peter Fincham quit, only to receive a £500,000 payoff.

Miss Bennett, who was hired by US cable network A+E networks in June, was also criticised for running up a huge expenses bill by sending BBC stars flowers, claiming £500 for a new handbag and throwing extravagant leaving parties.

When her post at BBC Worldwide was abolished last year, she was offered a £687,333 golden goodbye, the NAO revealed.

The figure included £404,000 for ‘loss of office’ and £283,333 for 10 months’ pay in lieu of notice, which was two months more than her contractual entitlement.

Once National Insurance was counted, the BBC paid out a total of £726,433 from licence fee payer’s money without alerting either the NAO or MPs.

It is thought Miss Bennett received an additional payment from BBC Worldwide coffers, but the NAO said it was unable to say how much as it was not given ‘access to data’.

Yesterday, the BBC said Miss Bennett’s severance deal should have been paid for entirely by BBC Worldwide and said it has since reclaimed the money from its commercial arm.

But critics said the defence was ‘bogus’, pointing out money taken from the BBC’s commercial earnings would simply reduce the amount paid back to the publicly funded parts of the corporation.

Labour MP Margaret Hodge, who chairs the PAC, said senior corporation figures will be called to explain the deal when they appear before her on Monday.

The NAO said the findings confirmed its July conclusions, adding: ‘Weak governance arrangements led to payments that exceeded contractual entitlements, provided poor value for money and put public trust at risk.’

[Teddy Bear]

2 bits of news today that shows just how corrupt the BBC are, including Patten, and that when push comes to shove, they're at each others throats.

Mark Thompson accuses BBC of misleading MPs over payoffs
Lord Patten and other senior members of the BBC have been accused of systematically misleading Parliament over controversial severance deals for executives.

By Peter Dominiczak,

Mark Thompson, the former Director-General of the broadcaster, has accused Lord Patten, the chairman of the BBC Trust, of “fundamentally misleading” MPs during a Commons select committee hearing earlier this year.

Mr Thompson, who is now chief executive at The New York Times, alleges that Lord Patten and Anthony Fry, a BBC trustee, gave evidence to MPs that was “false”.

He alleges that Lord Patten had been “fully briefed” about all aspects of a nearly £1million settlement to Mark Byford, the former deputy director general, and a £390,000 pay-off to Sharon Baylay, the former director of marketing.

Mr Thompson will on Monday appear before MPs on the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

At a previous PAC hearing in July, Lord Patten said he was “shocked” at how many senior staff were given huge payoffs which broke the corporations own guidelines.

Asked why he did not know some payoffs had gone beyond what was contractually needed, Lord Patten said: "If you call a previous director general of the BBC [understood to be Mr Thompson] I will be as interested as you are why we didn't know."

In response to those comments, Mr Thompson has now submitted a 25-page document to MPs which alleges that Lord Patten had been given a “detailed briefing” about the settlements.

Mr Thompson writes in his evidence: “The present Chair of the BBC Trust, Lord Patten, was himself fully briefed in writing as well as orally, about the two settlements shortly after his arrival in the early summer of 2011.”

Lord Patten was called before the PAC in July alongside Lord Hall, the current director-general, after a National Audit Office (NAO) report showed that huge payments totalling millions were made even though executives were not always entitled to the money.
However, in his evidence to MPs ahead of Monday’s hearing, Mr Thompson writes: “A comparison of this briefing material [in 2011] with the sections of the NAO report which deal with the Byford and Baylay cases shows that there is no revelation or additional information in the NAO report that was not part of Lord Patten’s briefing materials in July 2011.

“Two years later, he would claim he felt ‘shock and dismay’ when he read the same information in the NAO report, but in July 2011 he did not raise the topic of senior manager severance at all.

The allegations are sure to put Lord Patten under serious pressure and will reignite the debate over the scale of pay-offs at the Corporation.

Mr Thompson also accuses the Trust of not disclosing all the details of its involvement with severance payments to the NAO.
The NAO revealed this year that the BBC paid £25million to 150 departing bosses between 2009 and 2012.

Mr Thompson’s evidence states: “The picture painted for the PAC by the BBC Trust witnesses on July 10 2013 was – in addition to specific untruths and inaccuracies – fundamentally misleading about the extent of Trust knowledge and involvement.
“The insinuation that they were kept in the dark by me or anyone else is false.”

The payments were made under the chairmanship of Sir Michael Lyons, Lord Patten’s predecessor.

The BBC Trust said: "This is a bizarre document. We reject the suggestion that Lord Patten and Anthony Fry misled the PAC.”
Rob Wilson MP said: “It is not altogether surprising that Mark Thompson and Chris Patten are fighting like ferrets in a sack. As the light has been shone into the dark corners of the BBC, people with questions to answer have began to mount campaigns to save their own skin.

"They’ve been caught out and it’s now become every senior executive for himself at the BBC, whether a past D-G or a current chairman of the BBC Trust. It 's all deeply disappointing and embarrassing but altogether predictable.”

The other story is about Lucy Adams, the person who I posted above is due to resign giving a bullshit excuse. Well it appears she had forgotten when she last spoke before the Commons committee that she had helped draft the memo about the pay-offs, which she had then denied knowing anything about.

Little thing - must have slipped her mind.
I knew there was a good reason she was leaving now.

BBC HR boss admits mistake in evidence to MPs on payoffs

A former BBC executive has admitted that she had helped to draft a memo about controversial payments at the Corporation that she in July told Parliament she had never seen.
Lucy Adams has written to members of the Public Accounts Committee and said she made a mistake.

Lucy Adams has written to members of the Public Accounts Committee and said she made a mistake. Photo: LAURA HARDING/PA
By Peter Dominiczak

Lucy Adams, who announced last month she was quitting as HR Director at the BBC, has written to members of the Public Accounts Committee and said she made a mistake when giving evidence to MPs in July.

At that hearing, she told MPs that she had not seen a note detailing plans for pay-offs to Mark Byford, the former deputy director general, and Sharon Baylay, a former BBC marketing boss.
However, she has now written to MPs that she had in fact been “involved in drafting” the key memo.

It comes after Mark Thompson, the former director-general, accused Lord Patten and other senior members of the BBC of systematically misleading Parliament over severance deals.

Mr Thompson, who is now chief executive at The New York Times, alleges that Lord Patten and Anthony Fry, a BBC trustee, gave evidence to MPs that was “false”.

The questions that must be answered about the BBC 04 Sep 2013
He alleges that Lord Patten had been “fully briefed” about all aspects of the £1 million settlement to Mr Byford and a £390,000 pay-off to Mrs Baylay.

In his submission to MPs, Mr Thompson also claims that Mrs Adams was aware of the payments.

In written evidence published by the MPs, Mrs Adams makes clear that she was aware of the memo sent by Mark Thomson to the chairman of the BBC Trust.
She wrote: "During the July 10 hearing, the chair referred to a memo of October 7 2010.

"At the time, I was not clear which document the chair was referring to and so I could not recollect with absolute certainty whether or not I had seen the memo sent by Mark Thompson to the then chairman on October 7 2010.

"Since the hearing, I am now clear which document was being referred to and I can confirm that I was involved in drafting that memo, although I had not seen the final note sent to the Trust until recently."

Referring to Mr Thomson’s evidence, the BBC Trust said yesterday: "This is a bizarre document. We reject the suggestion that Lord Patten and Anthony Fry misled the PAC [Public Accounts Committee.]
"We completely disagree with Mark Thompson’s analysis, much of which is unsubstantiated, in particular the suggestion that Lord Patten was given a full and formal briefing on the exact terms of Mark Byford’s departure, which in any event took place before the current chairman’s arrival at the Trust.

"It remains the case, as noted by the NAO [National Audit Office] in its original report, both that the trust under the chairmanship of Sir Michael Lyons was told that these payments were within contractual terms and that the Trust did not have a role in the approval process.
"The trust has already published its own account of events, which took place well before Lord Patten’s arrival, and we look forward to answering fully and openly further questions at Monday’s PAC hearing.

"For Lord Patten and Anthony Fry the overriding concern remains the best interests and good standing of the BBC."

Lord Patten has described Mr Thompson’s claims as “very curious”.
“There’s one aspect of this very long deposition by Mr Thompson which I found very curious, which is the focus on Mark Byford and his pay-off because as anybody who works at the BBC knows that happened before I became chairman of the Trust so it’s slightly difficult to see how I could have been responsible for that,” he told BBC News.

[Teddy Bear]

One might be tempted to think that this issue will surely be enough for the government to bring an end to this insidious organisation.
Perhaps I'm too cynical, but having seen so many other previous issues that should have justified this action, I have my doubts.

Patten faces call to quit in BBC civil war: Chairman accused of misleading Parliament over pay-offs

• Lord Patten faced demands to quit or be sacked after allegations by Mark Thompson
  
• Former Director General Mr Thompson has sent a dossier to MPs
  
• But Lord Patten has said he has 'no concerns' about the allegations

By Sam Greenhill

Lord Patten faced demands to quit or be sacked last night as civil war tore through the BBC.

The chairman of the BBC Trust was given an ultimatum after being accused of ‘fundamentally misleading’ Parliament over the scandal of excessive pay-offs to Corporation fat cats.

But the defiant former Conservative Party chairman said he had ‘no concerns’ about the allegations made by former director general Mark Thompson.

Mr Thompson has sent a dossier to MPs as he seeks to rebut damaging claims that he was at fault for not making the BBC’s governing body fully aware of controversial payments to former executives Mark Byford and Sharon Baylay.

In it, he suggests that Lord Patten was briefed on the pay-offs shortly after taking over as chairman from Sir Michael Lyons in 2011.

But in July this year Lord Patten said he ‘didn’t know’ about the full extent of the scandal while giving evidence to MPs.

Both men now face a showdown before the influential public accounts committee on Monday. Tory MP Rob Wilson said they were ‘fighting like ferrets in a sack’.

Yesterday Mr Wilson said the chairman and three other senior BBC figures should ‘resign immediately or be sacked’ if they were shown to have misled Parliament.

He said Lord Patten, human resources chief Lucy Adams, BBC Trust director Nicholas Kroll and trustee Anthony Fry had all been accused of ‘re-writing history’ by Mr Thompson over the severance payments scandal.

Mr Wilson said: ‘They must all be required to answer each of the accusations Mr Thompson has made against them.

If they or anyone else is found to have done so without a proper excuse, they will have endangered the integrity and honesty expected of the BBC and must resign immediately or be sacked.’

As the row intensified, former culture secretary Ben Bradshaw declared that the BBC Trust should be scrapped.

And in a further twist, Miss Adams –who is quitting as head of HR after signing off multiple big pay-offs to senior managers – confessed that her own evidence to the committee had been ‘mistaken’.

Mr Thompson hit out at Lord Patten in a 25-page submission ahead of his committee appearance next week.

‘The picture painted for the PAC by Trust witnesses on July 10 was – in addition to specific untruths and inaccuracies – fundamentally misleading about the extent of Trust knowledge and involvement,’ Mr Thompson claimed.

‘The insinuation that they were kept in the dark by me or anyone else is false and is not supported by the evidence.

SO WHICH OF THEM IS TELLING THE TRUTH?

Here is what Lord Patten and Mark Thompson have said so far about whether the Trust was aware of payments of £1million to departing deputy director general Mark Byford and £394,000 to former marketing director Sharon Baylay:

LORD PATTEN:

At the public accounts committee, on July 10, chairman Margaret Hodge asked him: ‘Should the Trust have known? [about payments exceeding contractual obligations]’

Lord Patten: ‘Yes, and if you call a previous director general of the BBC in due course, I will be as interested as you in why we didn’t know.’

Speaking yesterday he added: ‘I’m obviously going to save my remarks principally until I appear in front of the committee on Monday, which I’m looking forward to.

'I have no concerns at all about the remarks Mr Thompson has made.’

MARK THOMPSON:

In his written submission to MPs, he says: ‘Lord Patten was fully briefed, in writing as well as orally, about the Mark Byford and Sharon Baylay settlements soon after his arrival as chairman in 2011.

‘A detailed briefing on the settlements was prepared for Lord Patten and myself to prepare us for questions from the Press and parliamentarians on the two cases.

'The settlements also came up in a series of preparatory meetings and rehearsals which Lord Patten and I both attended.’

Mr Thompson also encloses a briefing note which he says Lord Patten was given shortly after arriving as BBC Trust chairman in 2011.

It sets out questions the BBC might be asked about the sums given to Mr Byford and Miss Baylay, and suggests ways to justify the payments.

The note appears to give ammunition to both sides.

In one answer, it describes the sums as ‘contractual payments’, which will be helpful to Lord Patten because he claims the Trust was unaware of any ‘extra- contractual payments’.

But in another answer, the note says Miss Baylay ‘received... payment for notice, a redundancy payment... and an additional compensation payment’, which lends weight to Mr Thompson’s assertion that it was made clear there was money on top of what the BBC was contractually obliged to pay.

‘Lord Patten was fully briefed, in writing as well as orally, about the Mark Byford and Sharon Baylay settlements soon after his arrival as chairman in 2011.’

Mr Thompson has included a copy of the 2011 briefing note with his evidence. He added: ‘Two years later [Lord Patten] would claim he felt “shock and dismay” but in July 2011 he did not raise the topic of senior manager severance at all.’

Lord Patten has denied misleading the committee and has branded Mr Thompson’s submissions ‘bizarre’.

He said yesterday that he was relishing the chance to return to the committee, but would save his comments until then. ‘I have no concerns at all about the remarks Mr Thompson has made,’ he said.

On July 10 Miss Adams told the public accounts committee she had not seen a crucial note detailing plans for pay-offs – but now she admits she not only saw it but helped write it.

Her ‘clarification’ was published after Mr Thompson branded her evidence ‘inexplicable’ because she had been one of the ‘main authors’ of a 2010 note.

It set out how £1million of licence fee payers’ money should be lavished on a ‘golden goodbye’ to departing deputy director general Mr Byford and a further £394,000 to former director of marketing Miss Baylay. Their pay-offs were among a string of lucrative severance deals in which £25million was paid to departing BBC staff from 2009 to 2012.

BBC bosses past and present are now locked in a bitter war of words over who knew what and when.

The astonishing sum was uncovered by the National Audit Office.

Mr Wilson said it was not enough for the Trust to dismiss the allegations as ‘bizarre’, adding: ‘The evidence of Mr Thompson has blown a hole in Lord Patten’s argument that the Trust was only responsible for “strategy” and had no operational involvement in executive pay-offs.

‘He [Lord Patten] must urgently shore up confidence in his position and he can only do so by answering each of the specific allegations made by Mark Thompson. The cloud gathering over his position will only darken if he fails to do so.’

But he said the stakes were also high for Mr Thompson, who is now the boss of The New York Times.

He said: ‘If Mr Thompson’s allegations are found to be wrong or untruthful, I believe his position as chief executive of The New York Times would be untenable.

'It is not altogether surprising that Mark Thompson and Chris Patten are fighting like ferrets in a sack.

'As the light has been shone into the dark corners of the BBC, people with questions to answer have begun to mount campaigns to save their own skin.

'They’ve been caught out and it’s now become every senior executive for himself.’

Marcus Agius, who was chairman of the executive board remuneration committee, backed Mr Thompson’s version of events.

But in a statement, five BBC trustees poured scorn on Mr Thompson’s claims that ‘multiple documents establish’ that details of the pay-offs were disclosed to the Trust before settlements were approved.

'Richard Ayre, Diane Coyle, Anthony Fry, Alison Hastings and David Liddiment said: ‘We were not asked for approval of [Mr Byford’s] financial package – formally or informally – nor did we give it.’

[Teddy Bear]

I hope the following will come to fruition - it would be a good start.

Failing BBC Trust facing the axe as ministers plan to hand over regulation to Ofcom

• Move comes after row over 'excessive pay-offs' to senior BBC executives
  
• Independent regulator Ofcom already oversees most British broadcasting
  
• Ministers hope Ofcom will take over regulation of BBC from the Trust

By Suzannah Hills

The BBC Trust is facing the axe as ministers plan to hand over regulation of the organisation to Ofcom, it has emerged.

The move comes after an escalating spat between the former BBC director general Mark Thompson and the Trust chairman Lord Patten over 'excessive pay-offs' to senior executives.

The scale of some of the severance payments, many of them made as austerity cuts swept Britain, angered politicians and members of the public, who fund the broadcaster through a compulsory licence fee.

Now ministers hope to move regulation of the BBC away from the Trust to Ofcom which already oversees the standards for the rest of British broadcasting.

A source within the culture, media and sport department told the Sunday Times: 'It is clear the Trust, which is both a cheerleader for the BBC and its regulator, does not work. There are contradictions.'

The first chairman of the Trust Sir Michael Lyons agreed that changes need to be made.

He told the newspaper: 'On the Trust itself, maybe it is time to move on.

'But if there is a lesson to learn from all that's been happening at the BBC, it is that there should be more emphasis on its governance than its regulation.'

It comes ahead of appearances by both Mr Thompson and Lord Patten at the Commons public accounts committee tomorrow to answer questions over who approved over-payments of around £2.9 million to departing BBC staff over the course of six years.

The head of the BBC Trust, Chris Patten, told a parliamentary committee hearing in July he was shocked by the size of some of the payments and unaware a number were more than required under contractual terms.

But in a written submission to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), released on Friday, Thompson said: 'The picture painted for the PAC by the BBC Trust witnesses ... was - in addition to specific untruths and inaccuracies - fundamentally misleading about the extent of Trust knowledge and involvement.'

Thompson said he had backed up his submission with evidence and would not comment further until he appeared before the committee tomorrow, a body which oversees government expenditure.

Patten, a senior British conservative politician best known for handing control of Hong Kong back to China in 1997, told reporters he 'had no concerns at all' about Thompson's submission.

The BBC Trust said it rejected Thompson's statement, and called it 'bizarre'.

The stand-off between the two men has raised questions about which senior managers were aware of the payments and whether public money was used appropriately.

The inquiry into payments to senior BBC staff was triggered after Thompson's successor, George Entwistle, left the BBC in November last year after just 54 days in the top job with £450,000, which the National Audit Office later said was equivalent to a 12-month notice period set out in his contract.

Entwistle stepped down to take responsibility for a BBC news report which falsely accused a former senior politician of child abuse and allegations the corporation covered up decades of sex abuse by one of its late stars, Jimmy Savile.

A National Audit Office report in July, requested by the Public Accounts Committee after a public outcry over the size of payments to Entwistle and other executives, found a number of large sums were paid to managers, some of them exceeding contractual requirements.

Mark Thompson, in his recent submission to the committee, said the Trust had been aware, in particular, of severance payments to former deputy director general Mark Byford and to former marketing chief Sharon Baylay.

Byford departed with £949,000 and Baylay's settlement was worth £395,000 - both of them 12 months' pay in lieu of notice on top of redundancy payments - the National Audit Office report said. It did not say that those payments had exceeded contractual requirements.

The BBC Trust said it rejected Thompson's suggestion that Lord Patten and BBC Trustee Anthony Fry misled the parliamentary committee.

'We completely disagree with Mark Thompson's analysis, much of which is unsubstantiated,' the Trust said in a statement.

The BBC's director of human resources Lucy Adams, who has been fiercely criticised over the size of the payments, announced last week she would leave the BBC next year, saying it was time for a new start after five years at the corporation.

In a submission to the PAC released on Friday she said she had made a mistake in her earlier evidence to the committee and now did recall drafting a memo sent by Thompson to the Trust relating to the severance payments to Byford and Baylay.

Adams is also due to appear at the hearing on Monday.

[Teddy Bear]

Steven Pollard with an excellent article on the present dynamics within the BBC

We took your £60m because we’re worth it
By Stephen Pollard

The real problem with the BBC is that it doesn’t think it’s done anything wrong

If it wasn’t our money – £60 million of it, that we know about – it would be one of the great comic tales of our time. Lord Patten, a man who appears not to be overburdened by self-doubt, will today be hauled before the House of Commons’ public accounts committee to face accusations that he has not merely presided over a BBC regime of monstrous largesse, but has not told the truth to Parliament about it. Also present will be his main accuser – his former director general, Mark Thompson, who is taking a brief break from sharing the expertise that brought the BBC to the lowest point in its 91-year history with The New York Times, as its CEO. The pot will be spiced by further testimony from a string of bureaucratic nonentities, most on salaries that would make the average City worker weep with envy.

Sadly, there’s nothing amusing about the recent BBC revelations. The culture of management excess that has been revealed is simply breathtaking. In just three years, between 2009 and 2012, it handed more than £25 million to 150 departing managers, much of which went far beyond any contractual entitlement. The average severance payment for senior executives was £164,200.

Those figures, from a National Audit Office (NAO) report published in June, seemed shocking enough. Payments such as the £670,000 given to former chief operating officer Caroline Thomson – more than double her £330,000 salary – were the product of a culture which, according to the NAO, “breached its own policies on severance too often without good reason”.

Last week, however, it emerged that the scale of the payments had been even greater. All told, since 2005, the BBC has handed more than £60 million in pay-offs to its senior managers. More than £1 million of that is accounted for by the cheque to Mark Byford, the former deputy director general.

Mr Byford comes across as the archetypal BBC manager, whose only expertise lay in fulfilling the requirements of the various non-jobs to which he was repeatedly promoted. Yet, as a vote of thanks for his service, we handed him a cheque for £1 million when he left, as if that was entirely normal. Which, at the BBC, it was. Perhaps the least surprising aspect of all this is that these bureaucrats who have gorged themselves on our largesse appear to have no conception that they did anything wrong. They really do think they’re entitled to it.

Even Peter Fincham, who walked off with £500,000 when he resigned after the broadcast of a trailer that smeared the Queen. Half a million pounds for making what it would be charitable to call an appalling mistake. Nothing better illustrates a corporate culture utterly divorced from the real world.

Lord Hall, the man brought in to clean up the mess following George Entwistle’s departure in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal, seems like a good egg. But his response so far has been merely to impose a limit of £150,000 on the pay-offs. And it’s a sign of how entrenched this management culture is that, just before the details of these massive severance packages became public, the BBC wrote another cheque, for £700,000, to one Jana Bennett, which it somehow overlooked when it came to giving the relevant information to the NAO.

Staggeringly, not one person at the BBC has been disciplined for any of this. That’s because, in the eyes of its mandarins, there’s nothing to be disciplined for – the only problem is the bad publicity. We oiks just aren’t enlightened enough to realise the great contribution made by these titans of public service. That is the nub of it. And it’s why, at root, this is about more than just – just! – the money. Because only an organisation and an elite so divorced from the rest of the nation could ever have behaved like this.

It’s the same divorce that is reflected in the BBC’s editorial prejudices. The upper echelons are so cocooned in their own self-righteous world that it never even occurs to them that they might be wrong. True, Mark Thompson did once admit to the BBC having had a “massive bias to the Left”. But he said it was all in the past, so there was nothing he need do about it.

So how do we fix the problem? The talk over the weekend was that the Government will scrap the BBC Trust and hand oversight of the corporation to Ofcom. It’s certainly a flaw in the trust’s structure that it is both cheerleader for and regulator of the BBC – and Lord Patten’s current travails show just what a bodge it’s making of both tasks. But there’s a ready-made regulator already in place. Overall, 26.8 million British households have a TV licence. If a subscription to the BBC was voluntary, you could bet any sum you like – shall we say £60 million? – on a sudden, dramatic reconnection with the real world.

Lord Patten and Mr Thompson might no longer be on speaking terms, but for all the blame they will attach to each other in their evidence today, they’ll be as one on the fundamental issue – that you and I should still be forced to pay for their mistakes.

[Teddy Bear]

BBC wanted to axe Alan Yentob's £183,000-a-year job three years ago but after 'missed opportunity' he still remains in post

• Former boss Mark Thompson wrote he would delete Creative Director post
  
• Mr Yentob earns £320,000 a year for two jobs and has £6m pension pot
  
• Memo says that his job was to be axed in 2010, but he is still there
  
• Even he says 'It was absolutely right my post should be considered' for axe

By Martin Robinson

Superannuated BBC arts supremo Alan Yentob's job was to be axed by former director general Mark Thompson three years ago, it was revealed today.

Mr Thompson, who will appear in front of a Commons committee this afternoon, wanted to delete the 66-year-old's Creative Director post to save the Corporation £183,000 a year.

But Mr Yentob is still employed in the same role, and is paid £320,000 a year for the two jobs he does, having accrued a £6million pension pot in his decades with the BBC.

Today MPs have demanded to know why Mr Thompson's order was never carried out, and called it a 'missed opportunity' to get rid of the post.

Even Mr Yentob had admitted it was 'absolutely right' his job was under threat.

'These were very tough times and it was absolutely right that my post should be among those seriously considered for closure at a time when the BBC was committed to reducing the senior management headcount and paybill,' he said today.

Former director-general Mr Thompson and BBC Trust chairman Lord Patten face a grilling by the Public Accounts Committee today, with both men blaming each other over who was responsible for lavishing licence payers’ money on the generous payoffs.

The showdown is expected to result in calls for Lord Patten to quit and for the Trust to be reformed or even scrapped.

Mr Yentob's near-miss emerged in an internal memo from Mr Thompson to former BBC Trust Chairman Michael Lyons that was released to the committee.

'I intend shortly to close the post of Creative Director. With the loss of the posts of DDG (Deputy Director-General) and Director MC&A (Marketing, Communications and Audiences) this means that a total of five directors' posts will have gone, again exceeding the 20 per cent overall (senior salaries) target,' Mr Thompson said.

Tory MP Philip Davies told MailOnline: 'In this memo Mark Thompson is saying he is planning to get rid of him and doing away with that position, yet three years on Alan Yentob is still in post on a huge salary.

'It is a missed opportunity. Mark Thompson thought he could do without this position so you have to wonder why Lord Hall has not done the same thing.'

In June Mr Yentob was underfire for failing to declare that he is paid two separate salaries by the Corporation.

Yentob, 66, one of the BBC’s most powerful executives working under new director-general Lord Hall, is paid one salary of £183,300 as BBC Creative Director.

In keeping with BBC rules, he declared this income in the official online register of the BBC’s 100 senior managers as his ‘salary and total remuneration’.

But details obtained under Freedom of Information laws confirmed he is paid a second salary as editor and presenter of arts series Imagine.

The BBC and Yentob refused to reveal how much this extra income is, but BBC insiders say it is ‘easily’ in the region of £150,000 per year, bringing his actual total BBC pay to around £330,000.

Critics called this a ‘secret’ salary, saying that Yentob’s failure to even mention in the register that he is paid for his work on Imagine leaves licence payers with the impression his BBC earnings are substantially lower than they are.

A BBC spokeswoman said: 'The BBC makes clear on its corporate website that Alan Yentob is paid separately for his presenting work, which does not form part of his duties as a senior manager at the BBC.

'His salary on the website relates to his role as BBC Creative Director and not as a presenter which is separate and confidential as is consistent with all BBC talent salaries.'
Alan Yentob pays tribute to BBC Television Centre

[Teddy Bear]

BBC Trust chairman Lord Patten hit back, saying he was repeatedly told the huge deal for Mr Byford was 'contractual' and 'standard'.

'He was repeatedly told'!
Just what does he think the job of Head of Trust means?
He's supposed to check and make sure - not go with what he's told.
They're all slime!

Battle to the death of the BBC giants: Mark Thompson, Lord Patten point fingers at each other as trust members are summoned en masse for tense showdown in front of MPs over pay-off scandal

• Blame game rumbles on with all sides insisting they are not at fault
  
• Row centres on £949,000 severance payment to Mark Byford in 2010
  
• Ex-Director-General Thompson and Byford were friends and socialised
  
• Extra £500,000 for my friend was value for money, says Thompson
  
• Patten: I was told Mark Byford's deal was standard and contractual
  
• HR boss told by committee chairman Hodge: 'I want no more lies'
  
• BBC1 boss got £500,000 after he couldn't be sacked for 'Crowngate'
  
• Crisis exposes BBC Trust's inability to protect licence fee money
  

The bitter BBC civil war deepened today as Mark Thompson, Lord Patten and five other serving and former executives sought to shift the blame over who knew about over-generous pay-offs to managers.

Some claimed the 'eye-watering' pay-offs were part of a culture of extravagance at the Corporation while others insisted they presented 'value for money'.

During almost three hours of furious questioning in Parliament, former Director-General Mr Thompson and BBC Trust Lord Patten repeatedly contradicted each other, notably over a £1million settlement for ex-deputy Director-General Mark Byford.

Mr Thompson insisted he told the BBC Trust about the details of the pay-offs.

But sitting just feet away, BBC Trust chairman Lord Patten hit back, saying he was repeatedly told the huge deal for Mr Byford was 'contractual' and 'standard'.

As the Public Accounts Committee struggled to get to the bottom of the utter mess at the Corporation, Tory MP Chris Heaton-Harris said the saga was 'the most bizarre game of whack-a-mole I've ever seen in my life where you hit something down and it throws up another load of questions'.

To the astonishment of MPs on the powerful PAC, BBC bosses repeatedly claimed the £949,000 paid to Mr Byford in a 2010 deal represented ‘value for money’.

With no-one emerging victorious and the BBC's reputation suffering another hammering, the executives will be braced for a damning report from MPs.

Committee chairman Margaret Hodge said it would take an ordinary person 40 years to earn the sum paid out by the Corporation.

She expressed surprise that Mr Thompson decided the contractual sum of £500,000 was not enough for Mr Byford to stay ‘focused’ on his job, and instead agreed a £949,000 severance payment.

In a seemingly never-ending game of passing the buck, Mr Thompson insisted the BBC Trust was told about the details of the deal, but the Trust rejected this out of hand.

He denied 'losing the plot' in agreeing the over-generous deals, but the row now threatens the continued existence of the BBC Trust itself.

Kicking off the evidence session, Ms Hodge said it was an 'extraordinary occasion' for seven former and serving BBC executives to have to be called back to Parliament.

Mr Thompson and Lord Patten were called to appear with BBC HR director Lucy Adams, Marcus Agius, the former chairman of the BBC Executive Board Remuneration Committee, BBC director Nicholas Kroll, BBC Trustee Anthony Fry and former BBC Trust chairman Sir Michael Lyons.

Ms Hodge said she hoped to 'establish on behalf of both the public and licence-fee payer who knew what and at what time and who is responsible for decisions taken by the BBC'.

She said the deals led to ‘grossly excessive payments which most people now consider to be unacceptable’.

Ms Hodge said under Mr Byford's contract he could have been paid off with £500,000.

She said: 'Why was half a million pounds, which to most people is mega bucks, why was that not enough?'

But Mr Thompson said it was part of getting the ‘complete pay bill down’ and suggested he would sign off the same deal again because it represented ‘value for money’.

Defiantly he declared: ‘I do not think we lost the plot.’ He said he had achieved a lot to cut the number of managers and reduce the pay bill.

He denied that BBC rules on payouts were 'lax' but conceded: 'Not all of the paperwork was done perfectly.'

Bizarrely Mr Thompson said the pay-off to his friend Mr Byford was needed to make sure he remained 'focused' on his job and not be distracted.

Mr Thompson told the committee that in his view Mr Byford's severance package represented 'value for money' and he explained that he had been under 'ferocious pressure' from the Trust to make savings.

Mr Thompson said he stood by his claim that the committee had been misled when they were told the Trust had been 'kept in the dark' about severance packages, including Mr Byford's deal agreed in October 2010.

He added: 'I don't understand why those misleading comments were made.'

But sitting just feet away Lord Patten said he had been repeatedly told the deal was 'contractual' and 'standard'.

'I'm accused of having misled the committee on something that I never knew and couldn't have been expected to know,' Lord Patten, who became Trust chairman in May 2011, added.

Ahead of the grilling by the Public Accounts Committee, David Cameron warned licence fee payers deserve answers over how the big payments were agreed for Corporation fat cats.

Downing Street said the Prime Minister believes there are 'legitimate questions' about the way millions of pounds in severance payments were signed off at a time when cuts were being made to programme budgets.

But in a boost for Lord Patten, the government rubbished reports it was planning to scrap the troubled BBC Trust.

CRISIS EXPOSES INABILITY OF BBC TRUST TO PROTECT LICENCE FEE

The utter confusion over who knew what about the payouts has exposed major failures in the ability of the BBC Trust to hold senior executives to account.

Trust chairman Lord Patten pleaded with MPs for more time to prove that the governance system set up by the last Labour government could work.

But PAC chairman Margaret Hodge said: 'We all around the table feel it's broke.'

Downing Street played down reports that ministers were preparing to scrap the Trust.

Lord Patten also cast doubt on a proposal that communications watchdog Ofcom should regulate the corporation, saying: 'I can't imagine handing the regulatory power to Ofcom and Ofcom wanting to be involved in remuneration.'

Mr Thompson, now chief executive of the New York Times, and Lord Patten blame each other over who was responsible for lavishing licence payers’ money on the generous payoffs.

Mr Thompson insists he told the BBC Trust about Mr Byford's deal.

In July he said: 'The BBC Trust was fully informed in advance, in writing as well as orally, about the proposed severance packages for Mark Byford and [marketing director] Sharon Baylay’.

He added: 'I had made sure the Trust were aware of and understood all potentially contentious issues. The Trust had every opportunity to express any concerns about the proposals before they were approved.'

Today he repeated the claims, telling the committee: 'I don't want to impute intention to it but I believe there were damaging and unfair misleading statements made specifically on this point.'

However this is something that trustees - including Lord Patten - deny.

Five BBC trustees have poured scorn on Mr Thompson’s claims that ‘multiple documents establish’ that details of the payoffs was disclosed to the BBC Trust before the settlements were approved.

In a statement, Richard Ayre, Diane Coyle, Anthony Fry, Alison Hastings and David Liddiment said: ‘We were not asked for approval of [Mr Byford’s] financial package - formally or informally - nor did we give it.’

Today Nicholas Kroll, the director of the BBC Trust, insisted he was not 'closely involved' in the preparation of a note on October 7 2010 about the Byford payment.

He conceded the pay-off was 'unquestionably a large figure' but a matter for the remuneration committee and not the trust.

Ms Hodge asked Mr Kroll, who is paid £238,000, how much he earns and told him 'the job of the trust is to protect the licence fee payers' interests'.

She said: 'There is not one person around the table who can understand why there was no challenge from you.'

Ms Hodge hauled Mr Thompson and Lord Patten in to give evidence side by side with other BBC bosses because ‘they all accuse each other and nobody accepts responsibility for what happened’.

They are appearing with BBC HR director Lucy Adams, Marcus Agius, the former chairman of the BBC Executive Board Remuneration Committee, BBC director Nicholas Kroll, BBC Trustee Anthony Fry and former BBC Trust chairman Sir Michael Lyons.

Senior BBC managers received a total of £25milion in severance deals between 2009 and 2012.

Nearly £3million was paid over and above what they were entitled to in their contracts in the six years to 2012, a National Audit Office report found.

WE NOW HAVE A GRIP ON SPENDING, SAYS NEW DIRECTOR GENERAL
Tony Hall, is the Director-General of the BBC

New BBC director general Tony Hall today insisted the corporation now has 'a grip on the money' it gets from licence-fee payers.

He has repeatedly warned of the damage done to the Corporation's reputation over the size of severance payments, and the mid-slinging between executives over who signed them off.

Lord Hall, who introduced a cap on pay-offs after starting in the top job earlier this year, told LBC 97.3: 'We've put in a cap of £150,000, we've put in all sort of measures to make sure that we have a grip on the money that our licence payers are giving us.

'And what I now want to do is to concentrate - as our audiences and staff expect us to do - on our fantastic services.'

The NAO examined 60 severance payments earlier this year and a new report published last week report looked at another 90.

The damning report states: ‘Across all 150 severance payments to senior managers in the three years to December 2012, the BBC paid more salary in lieu of notice than it was contractually obliged to in 22 cases, at a total cost of £1.4 million.’

In 18 of the extra 90 cases, severance deals were agreed before going through the relevant scrutiny and approval process. In one case £141,000 was paid out before approval had even been given.

Mr Thompson last week sent his own dossier to MPs to refute claims he did not make the BBC’s governing body fully aware of controversial payments to former executives Mark Byford and Sharon Baylay.

But former BBC chairman Sir Michael Lyons insisted on Friday that he was not told of the Byford payment. ‘I do not think I was ever told the full, final, terms of the deal after it was agreed in October 2010,’ he said.

Tory MP Rob Wilson has called for Lord Patten and other senior BBC figures to ‘resign immediately or be sacked’ if they were shown to have misled Parliament.

Ahead of the hearing, Mr Cameron's official spokesman said the PM was expecting answers to key questions about who knew about the deals, and how they were approved.

'There are legitimate questions the licence fee payer should get an answer to,' the spokesman said.

'The issue that is in front of the House is the one around payments that have been made. I think it is very understandable that there are concerns about them.'

With the corporation in a state of near civil war, the BBC has written to 150 former managers warning them that their severance arrangements may be made public.

Referring to the NAO report, the BBC’s letter said: ‘PAC has recently confirmed in writing to the BBC that it is applying its Standing Order power to call for the 150 names and details of the 150 recipients of severance payments cited in the report, which includes you.’

Some among the 150 ex-staff believe they are being unfairly targeted.

One former senior manager said: ‘The concern I would have is that a senior manager such as myself, whose redundancy settlement was perfectly in order, will be lumped together with the very small number of senior managers whose deals seem to have been rather more generous.’

Ex-Director-General Mark Thompson today claimed his friend and deputy Mark Byford needed to be paid £949,000 to remain 'focussed' on his job at the BBC.

MPs demanded to know why the huge sum was agreed, when contractually Mr Byford was only entitled to £500,000.

Mr Thompson denied there was any 'favouritism' in his decision to agree the deal.

Mr Thompson told the committee that in his view Mr Byford's severance package represented 'value for money' and he explained that he had been under 'ferocious pressure' from the Trust to make savings.

As part of the extraordinary deal, it was decided in October 2010 that Mr Byford would not be told formally that he was being made redundant until April the following year, allowing him to continue drawing on his salary.

Mr Thompson said the huge sum was needed because the BBC wanted Mr Byford to be 'fully focused' on his work during his last months in the job and not 'worried about his future'.

But former Trust chairman Sir Michael Lyons agreed with the MPs that payments like Mr Byford's 'look eye-watering' and he warned the Trust had been 'damaged' but the crisis.

Lord Patten said he had been repeatedly told the £949,000 deal for Mark Byford to leave the BBC was 'contractual' and 'standard'.

The BBC Trust chairman told the committee: 'I am in a slightly difficult position because I became chairman of the Trust six months after the Byford payment.

'I'm accused of having misled the committee on something that I never knew and couldn't have been expected to know.'

He said he had been through his induction pack from May 2011 and subsequent briefings, and there was no mention of the controversial severance payments.

One briefing ahead of a press conference stated: 'These were contractual payments which were essential in order to slim down the executive board.'

Lord Patten complained that it is 'Mark's contention' that he should somehow have deduced that the payment to Mr Byford was in excess of his contractual minimum.

He blamed a 'cultural issue' for the slate of payouts at the Corporation which 'we do have to recognise and apologise for and deal with very robustly'.

He said one of his first jobs was a meeting to discuss executive pay where he made 'a very simple point that the best cultural director in the world, Neil MacGregor, got £180,000 a year for running the British Museum. How many people at the BBC get paid more than that and how can we justify that?'.

Lord Patten cast doubt on a proposal that communications watchdog Ofcom should regulate the corporation, saying: 'I can't imagine handing the regulatory power to Ofcom and Ofcom wanting to be involved in remuneration.'

Embattled HR director Lucy Adams was warned by the committee that they do not want 'any more lies' as tempers frayed over the contradictions and changing stories given to MPs.

Ms Adams, who announced last month she was quitting the BBC, initially told MPs she had not seen a note detailing plans for pay-offs to Mr Byford and marketing boss Sharon Baylay - but later admitted she helped to write it.

PAC chairman Margaret Hodge warned her: 'I’m not having any more lies this afternoon.'

Following the suggestion that her evidence should now be taken with 'a pinch of salt', Ms Adams said that such an inference was 'grossly unfair' and she had been confused about what document the committee had been referring to.

Ms Adams said she 'immediately' clarified the issue, but then admitted she had not told the committee until September 2 after giving the mistaken evidence on July 10.

'It's a very funny interpretation of immediate,' Ms Hodge said.

Ms Adams also faced claims she had offered over-the-top 'sweeteners' to persuade senior managers to leave the BBC.

She said the Corporation had to lose senior staff without causing too much disruption and there were often 'difficult discussions'.

But a furious Ms Hodge hit back: 'This attitude that the top cadre of people at the BBC faced greater difficulty when they faced redundancy rather than a receptionist or someone lower down is offensive, just offensive.'

Peter Fincham, the former BBC1 controller walked away in 2007 with £500,000 because the Corporation could not sack him, it emerged today.

He resigned over the so-called Crowngate scandal in which he wrongly told the Press at a screening that the Queen walked out of a photoshoot featured in a royal documentary ‘in a huff’.

It later emerged that a promotional trailer for the programme had been misleadingly edited and that his account was untrue.

Mark Thompson said there had been an ‘editorial disaster’ which involved many people both insides the BBC and at the independent production company which made the programme.

But he added: ‘I felt it would be appropriate for Peter to go. The clear advice however was we didn’t have grounds for dismissal.

‘We decided to go for a consensual termination. I absolutely remember briefing the chairman [of the BBC Trust]. Not on every detail but we were going through a difficult negotiation, a lawyer-to-lawyer negotiation’.