Post by Teddy Bear on Sept 15, 2013 15:29:06 GMT
One would think that an executive earning well over a £100,000 a year would have to focus full time on their duties to justify this kind of salary. But at the BBC it appears this is not so.
As the article below shows , the licence fee is used as a gravy train by those at the top, and their earnings have nothing to do with ability or value for money. Consider that there are people who have to go to prison for not paying them their money, and if the government continue to allow this situation to continue they are just as foul scum as those at the BBC.
As the article below shows , the licence fee is used as a gravy train by those at the top, and their earnings have nothing to do with ability or value for money. Consider that there are people who have to go to prison for not paying them their money, and if the government continue to allow this situation to continue they are just as foul scum as those at the BBC.
Commons to probe BBC second jobs: Fury over the £270,000-a-year corporate boss who somehow found the time to set up a coffee chain
By Glen Owen, Miles Goslett and Martin Delgado
A powerful Commons committee is to probe the ‘second jobs culture’ at the top of the BBC after The Mail on Sunday uncovered how senior executives are running thriving businesses on the side.
One manager, earning £207,000 a year, has found the time to establish a cafe business.
Another £175,000-a-year director also runs a consumer electronic business, while the £131,000-year-head of the director-general’s office works as a director of the London Ambulance Service.
Last night John Whittingdale, Tory chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport select committee, said he was planning to grill BBC Chairman Chris Patten and Director-General Tony Hall over the issue when they appear before MPs next month.
He also said that he was going to launch a ‘substantial’ inquiry into the BBC to look at ‘root and branch reforms’, including whether the licence fee should be scrapped.
Mr Whittingdale’s move comes against the backdrop of growing outrage over high pay and extravagant pay-offs at the Corporation, and an increasingly toxic relationship between the Government and the BBC.
This newspaper’s investigation discovered that, despite earning six-figure salaries for supposedly demanding senior positions, executives are also juggling extra business interests.
Lisa Opie, who earns £207,800 a year as the controller of Business, Knowledge and Daytime, has founded a cafe business called Here.
The venture opened in July with an outlet in Berkhamsted, which Ms Opie said was the start of a future national franchise. Its website makes this ambition clear, listing the site as its ‘head office’.
In a blog, Opie admits to be exhausted by combining the ‘exciting’ new project with her high-profile job at the BBC.
In one post, with the tagline ‘so much left to do’, she says that ‘by the time I got in from work at six, the house was full of delicious smells’.
Her home is also in Berkhamsted: so if she was travelling by train, she would have to leave her office in Central London by 4.40pm at the latest to get back by 6pm.
In another blog she wrote: ‘It’s been nonstop . . . 18-hour days, rapid phone calls squeezed in between proper job meetings, hurried decisions about banquettes and stressy calls to the VAT man on the train.’
And on Tuesday, July 16, she wrote: ‘This morning we’ve panicked about retail units, fretted about banquettes, debated cycle routes to feature online and worried about whether all of our staff will be able to see over what is a rather tall counter.’
Ms Opie, 53, co-founded the business with Deborah Manners, who runs the independent production company Keo Films, which makes shows for the BBC, such as Terry Pratchett: Choosing to Die.
Keo also makes the River Cottage series for Channel 4, hosted by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, who has provided backing for the cafe.
In one of her blogs, Ms Manners wrote: ‘I am on leave from Keo, so I can concentrate on the opening. Poor Lisa has to work at the BBC some days though – I will miss her being around.’
The pair dreamed up their business as they relaxed by the carp pool at the upmarket Sanctuary spa in Covent Garden.
Before joining the BBC last year, with responsibility for cutting red tape and striking deals with independent producers, Ms Opie was managing director of production company Twofour, which has a £45million-a-year turnover.
Ms Opie is not the only senior figure at the BBC to juggle jobs.
Colin Burns, the Executive Creative Director of Future Media, runs his own ‘micro-enterprise design company’ which ‘designs and licences consumer electronic products’.
Jessica Cecil, who is paid a package worth £131,525 as head of the director-general’s office, is also paid between £5,000 and £10,000 a year as a non-executive director of the London Ambulance Service.
And earlier this year it was revealed that the BBC executive responsible for an IT debacle which wasted more than £100 million of licence fee-payers’ money held down a second job.
John Linwood, currently suspended from his £280,000-a-year post as BBC head of technology, became a non-executive director of a private technology firm called DRS in January last year, earning him £28,000 in 2012.
BBC executive contracts prevent senior managers from being ‘employed or performing services for another entity or person’ or being ‘self-employed in any other business activity’ without written consent.
Last night, the BBC said that all the executives had permission for their second jobs.
Mr Whittingdale said: ‘The matter of BBC executives having second jobs is serious. Particularly when there is concern over levels of pay at the BBC, these examples do not suggest that the licence payer is getting good value for money.’
He added: ‘The intellectual justification for the licence fee is breaking down in any case. It is regressive in nature.
'Nobody who has to pay this compulsory charge is offered any sort of relief on it.’
His committee will consider the running and funding of the Corporation in an investigation expected to begin in the New Year
Culture Secretary Maria Miller has described the last 12 months as the BBC’s ‘annus horribilis’ as it struggled to cope with scandals involving Jimmy Savile’s sex abuse, executive payoffs, and the failed £100 million computer project.
Last night, a senior Government source said: ‘It is surprising that individuals who hold senior positions at the BBC with corresponding salaries have enough time outside their demanding jobs to feather their nests elsewhere.’
Ms Miller was incensed last week when her Labour predecessor, James Purnell, who is now the BBC’s £295,000-a-year director of Strategy and Digital, objected to her plan to allow the National Audit Office to examine the BBC’s accounts because it would ‘threaten the BBC’s journalistic independence’.
This newspaper understands that a furious Ms Miller has privately described Mr Purnell as ‘doing the bidding’ of Labour’s Culture spokeswoman Harriet Harman.
‘James Purnell seems to have forgotten that he is no longer a Labour Cabinet Minister but a BBC executive who is meant to be impartial,’ the source added.
The BBC said: ‘All members of staff are required to declare any personal interests which are assessed to ensure no conflict of interests exist or arise.
'The members of staff mentioned have all sought the BBC’s permission to take up their roles, which comply with the declaration of personal interests guidelines.’
The spokeswoman added that Ms Opie’s other job was done in her own time and did not impact on the work she does for the BBC.
By Glen Owen, Miles Goslett and Martin Delgado
A powerful Commons committee is to probe the ‘second jobs culture’ at the top of the BBC after The Mail on Sunday uncovered how senior executives are running thriving businesses on the side.
One manager, earning £207,000 a year, has found the time to establish a cafe business.
Another £175,000-a-year director also runs a consumer electronic business, while the £131,000-year-head of the director-general’s office works as a director of the London Ambulance Service.
Last night John Whittingdale, Tory chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport select committee, said he was planning to grill BBC Chairman Chris Patten and Director-General Tony Hall over the issue when they appear before MPs next month.
He also said that he was going to launch a ‘substantial’ inquiry into the BBC to look at ‘root and branch reforms’, including whether the licence fee should be scrapped.
Mr Whittingdale’s move comes against the backdrop of growing outrage over high pay and extravagant pay-offs at the Corporation, and an increasingly toxic relationship between the Government and the BBC.
This newspaper’s investigation discovered that, despite earning six-figure salaries for supposedly demanding senior positions, executives are also juggling extra business interests.
Lisa Opie, who earns £207,800 a year as the controller of Business, Knowledge and Daytime, has founded a cafe business called Here.
The venture opened in July with an outlet in Berkhamsted, which Ms Opie said was the start of a future national franchise. Its website makes this ambition clear, listing the site as its ‘head office’.
In a blog, Opie admits to be exhausted by combining the ‘exciting’ new project with her high-profile job at the BBC.
In one post, with the tagline ‘so much left to do’, she says that ‘by the time I got in from work at six, the house was full of delicious smells’.
Her home is also in Berkhamsted: so if she was travelling by train, she would have to leave her office in Central London by 4.40pm at the latest to get back by 6pm.
In another blog she wrote: ‘It’s been nonstop . . . 18-hour days, rapid phone calls squeezed in between proper job meetings, hurried decisions about banquettes and stressy calls to the VAT man on the train.’
And on Tuesday, July 16, she wrote: ‘This morning we’ve panicked about retail units, fretted about banquettes, debated cycle routes to feature online and worried about whether all of our staff will be able to see over what is a rather tall counter.’
Ms Opie, 53, co-founded the business with Deborah Manners, who runs the independent production company Keo Films, which makes shows for the BBC, such as Terry Pratchett: Choosing to Die.
Keo also makes the River Cottage series for Channel 4, hosted by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, who has provided backing for the cafe.
In one of her blogs, Ms Manners wrote: ‘I am on leave from Keo, so I can concentrate on the opening. Poor Lisa has to work at the BBC some days though – I will miss her being around.’
The pair dreamed up their business as they relaxed by the carp pool at the upmarket Sanctuary spa in Covent Garden.
Before joining the BBC last year, with responsibility for cutting red tape and striking deals with independent producers, Ms Opie was managing director of production company Twofour, which has a £45million-a-year turnover.
Ms Opie is not the only senior figure at the BBC to juggle jobs.
Colin Burns, the Executive Creative Director of Future Media, runs his own ‘micro-enterprise design company’ which ‘designs and licences consumer electronic products’.
Jessica Cecil, who is paid a package worth £131,525 as head of the director-general’s office, is also paid between £5,000 and £10,000 a year as a non-executive director of the London Ambulance Service.
And earlier this year it was revealed that the BBC executive responsible for an IT debacle which wasted more than £100 million of licence fee-payers’ money held down a second job.
John Linwood, currently suspended from his £280,000-a-year post as BBC head of technology, became a non-executive director of a private technology firm called DRS in January last year, earning him £28,000 in 2012.
BBC executive contracts prevent senior managers from being ‘employed or performing services for another entity or person’ or being ‘self-employed in any other business activity’ without written consent.
Last night, the BBC said that all the executives had permission for their second jobs.
Mr Whittingdale said: ‘The matter of BBC executives having second jobs is serious. Particularly when there is concern over levels of pay at the BBC, these examples do not suggest that the licence payer is getting good value for money.’
He added: ‘The intellectual justification for the licence fee is breaking down in any case. It is regressive in nature.
'Nobody who has to pay this compulsory charge is offered any sort of relief on it.’
His committee will consider the running and funding of the Corporation in an investigation expected to begin in the New Year
Culture Secretary Maria Miller has described the last 12 months as the BBC’s ‘annus horribilis’ as it struggled to cope with scandals involving Jimmy Savile’s sex abuse, executive payoffs, and the failed £100 million computer project.
Last night, a senior Government source said: ‘It is surprising that individuals who hold senior positions at the BBC with corresponding salaries have enough time outside their demanding jobs to feather their nests elsewhere.’
Ms Miller was incensed last week when her Labour predecessor, James Purnell, who is now the BBC’s £295,000-a-year director of Strategy and Digital, objected to her plan to allow the National Audit Office to examine the BBC’s accounts because it would ‘threaten the BBC’s journalistic independence’.
This newspaper understands that a furious Ms Miller has privately described Mr Purnell as ‘doing the bidding’ of Labour’s Culture spokeswoman Harriet Harman.
‘James Purnell seems to have forgotten that he is no longer a Labour Cabinet Minister but a BBC executive who is meant to be impartial,’ the source added.
The BBC said: ‘All members of staff are required to declare any personal interests which are assessed to ensure no conflict of interests exist or arise.
'The members of staff mentioned have all sought the BBC’s permission to take up their roles, which comply with the declaration of personal interests guidelines.’
The spokeswoman added that Ms Opie’s other job was done in her own time and did not impact on the work she does for the BBC.