Increase in BBC Mid-Execs Despite Hall's Vow to Cut Number

[Teddy Bear]

Before reading this story, I want to remind you of something written by Steve Doughty in the Mail in April 2012 titled Thousands of redundancies later, and the BBC is still a bloated bureaucracy

He writes:

According to a statement, ‘the BBC has made significant reductions in its headcount as part of overall efficiency savings. While this has necessitated some one-off redundancy costs, this is outweighed by the cumulative savings achieved over this period of £2.7 billion.’
With savings like that, I ought to be seeing my licence fee going down. We must be getting an announcement soon.

Alternatively, I could be getting £2.7 billion worth of improved service. In fact, this seems to be the answer. The BBC has had to hire lots of new people to do important work like running iPlayer and BBC Persia, we are told.

Bureacuracy: For every cut the BBC makes, it creates another level of administration
I may be a cynic, but I do not believe you need 2,600 people to run iPlayer and BBC Persia.

What I think is this. The BBC’s formidable bureaucrats have done what all bureaucrats do, and responded to attempts to curb their empires by building new ones. This is all carried out under fancy names that are designed to convince people that real cost-cutting is going on.
So the redundancy payments were part of efficiency drives called Value for Money and Continuous Improvement. Yes, really.

Some have been made under the latest savings campaign, called Delivering Quality First. This will involve getting rid of new daytime programming on BBC Two, and some cuts to radio comedy, and so on.
We will in the months to come discover how much quality is getting delivered through all this. What is not going to happen is any serious reduction in the £5 billion a year the Corporation costs to run, any serious thinning of the ranks of the political advisers and communications consultants who infest its offices, any pruning of fringe channels or operations with nil public service justification.

Every time the BBC is called to account for some 'less than honourable' deed that comes to light, their first line of defence is to state that 'lessons have been learned and changes will be made' to satisfy the public.
But when you look later at what actually has been done that shows that to be true, you find the BBC continuing just as they did before.
About time MPs and the public stop allowing BBC pledges to carry any weight - they really don't.

Increase in BBC middle-managers as director-general vows to cut executives
There was a 14 per cent rise in the number of the Corporation's staff at the level just below senior management over a three-year period

By Sam Marsden

The number of the BBC's middle-managers has increased despite its new director-general pledging to save money by cutting senior executive posts, official figures suggest.

There was a 14 per cent rise in staff employed by the Corporation at the level immediately below the top management, from 638 to 729, in the three years to March, The Times reported, citing a Freedom of Information disclosure.

Average salaries for these “band 11” employees rose by 6 per cent over this period to reach £77,308, taking the BBC’s total pay bill for them to £65.5 million.

Lord Hall, who took over as director-general in April, has acknowledged criticism of executive pay-offs and said that he understands the resentment felt by more junior staff towards the broadcaster’s highly-paid “officer class”.

Lord Patten, chairman of the BBC Trust, the Corporation’s governing body, said in September that he wanted to reduce the proportion of senior managers from 2.5 per cent to 1 per cent by 2015.

The number of senior executives at the BBC was reduced from 614 in 2010 to 445 in March last year, and further positions will be axed in the coming year.
Band 11 staff are generally employed as specialists and include some journalists, although not full-time television and radio presenters.

A BBC spokesman said: "You can't judge the total reduction of BBC staff through the prism of a single, prominently specialist grade at the BBC when the reality is that between March 2010 and March 2013, BBC headcount was reduced by more than 1,400 and the pay bill by close to £58 million."

[Teddy Bear]

Now we see that not only has the number of middle managers and junior staff increased, but they are being paid more money than their pay grade dictates.

In effect the BBC charade that they are reducing their top management is a PR exercise, but is complete bullshit. They are juggling positions to make it appear that they have less senior positions, though even those are still far in excess of what Hall pledged to reduce, while giving far higher salaries to those with the appearance of being on a lower rung.

Deception is in the insidious BBC DNA.

BBC admits one in eight staff are paid too much as wage bill for junior staff soars by £35MILLION in three years

• The Corporation has admitted overpaying one in eight of its employees
• It has also allowed wage bill for junior staff to soar by £35m in three years
• BBC has repeatedly boasted that it is cutting back on top-level salaries
• But thousands of employees now earn more than their pay grade allows

By Alasdair Glennie

The BBC has admitted overpaying one in eight of its employees and allowing the wage bill for junior staff to soar by £35million in three years.

While the Corporation repeatedly boasts that it is cutting back on top-level salaries, new figures show it has simultaneously allowed its middle management to become increasingly bloated.

Thousands of employees now earn more than they are entitled to under the BBC’s own pay grade system, leading to accusations it is allowing costs to spiral out of control.

Figures released under the Freedom of Information act show 2,164 of its 17,447 staff earn more than their pay grade allows.

Critics suggested the practice of overpaying middle managers and more junior staff allows the Corporation to boast it is cutting senior posts while continuing to pay inflated salaries.

Last night Tory MP Angie Bray, who sits on the Commons culture, media and sport committee, said the figures show the BBC is ‘never knowingly underpaid’.

She added: ‘I honestly find it extraordinary that the BBC is breaking its own rules on pay. We had been led to believe it was only a handful of staff at the top who were being overpaid. Now it seems the rot runs much deeper.’

The BBC divides its staff into 18 pay bands. The top two, which include senior managers and top presenters, have seen their numbers slashed after director general Tony Hall vowed to cut the proportion of executives to around one per cent of the workforce.

Between 2009 and 2013 the number of senior managers was reduced from 640 to 429, although a further 216 jobs need to go to hit the target. But the amount spent on lower levels has risen.

The pay bill for employees on the rung below senior management – known as ‘band 11’ – increased by a fifth to £65.5million in the past three years.

Of them, 61 per cent are given more than the salary ceiling of £73,888.

The next rung down includes 1,325 staff, including many of the BBC’s on-air journalists. ‘Band 10’ cost the BBC almost £97million in 2012/13.

Almost half of those were paid more than the agreed salary ceiling of £66,460.

The BBC denied that it is simply reclassifying senior managers at a lower grade but giving them the same pay to artificially reduce executive numbers.

A spokesman said those earning above their pay band were either ‘long serving members of staff’ or had a special ‘skill-set’.

'While these salary bands are internal guidelines only, we have consistently reduced the number of staff earning outside the guided amount since 2010 in these grades,' the spokesman said.

'However, there continues to be members of staff who possess a skill-set that commands a higher market premium than the guide for their grade.'

[Teddy Bear]

Can you imagine a head of a company who's been in the post for nearly 2 years, and vowed to trim the management when he was first appointed, still not knowing what his managers do?

But that's the BBC for you. It shows they'll say anything they believe the public wants to hear at any given time with no intention to actually perform to it.

BBC chief questions purpose of corporation's senior managers
Lord Hall has admitted that he does not 'understand very clearly' the purpose of hundreds of his own senior managers

Lord Hall also delivered a warning to politicians about any future plans to cut the BBC’s budget
By Peter Dominiczak

The head of the BBC has admitted that he does not “understand very clearly” the purpose of hundreds of senior managers at the Corporation.
Lord Hall, the director-general of the BBC, admitted that the Corporation has failed to meet a pledge to reduce the number of senior managers to just 1 per cent of the overall staff.

The BBC in 2011 said that it would reduce the number of senior managers at the BBC to around 220.

However, there are still 388 senior managers working at the Corporation, Lord Hall admitted.
Appearing on BBC Radio 4, the director-general conceded that he is now unlikely to meet the pledge to cut the number of senior managers to 220.

He said: “We’ve taken a third out of senior managers in that time. We’re now two-thirds of what we were. That’s actually progress and I’m looking at the amount and numbers of senior managers still further.

“I don’t know about 220. What I do want to do is understand very clearly what senior managers – who they are and what they do. I think there’s some confusion about that.”

Lord Hall also delivered a warning to politicians about any future plans to cut the BBC’s budget.
He said that Britain’s broadcasters’ are vital to the country and said: “Mess with that at your peril.”

Ahead of the 2016 charter renewal negotiations, which many senior politicians want to use to argue for a cut or a significant change to the TV licensing regime, Lord Hall said: “I believe we’ve got a huge amount to offer this country. I believe we’re the biggest cultural force in this country.

“You can either want that to continue for the next decade or more, because actually I think the need for the BBC is greater in the coming decade than before, or by sort of treating it to more cuts or whatever, gradually you can see the BBC fading away.”

He added: ““I think we are blessed in this country with a broadcasting ecology which delivers fantastic programmes. And that’s because on the one hand you’ve got the BBC publically funded by the licence fee. ITV and Channel 4 funded by advertising and Sky doing great things funded by subscription. Mess with that at your peril.”