Post by Teddy Bear on Jun 5, 2009 23:14:46 GMT
Following the MP's scandalous misuse of public funds has highlighted the need for ALL those taking public money to be open about how they spend it. So why do the BBC think they should be exempt, and even spend further of those funds to conceal it?
The BBC was right to rip into MPs' expenses... and we've every right to know what it sqaunders on its own stars
By Stephen Glover
Do we have a right to know what BBC stars are paid? The Commons Public Accounts Committee is certain we do. It has called the Corporation 'disgraceful' over its refusal to reveal the salaries of top stars and presenters.
This condemnation by MPs can doubtless be partly seen as a response to the BBC's role in the expenses scandal.
Though it was initially a bit sniffy about the story, with some of its early news bulletins implying that the Daily Telegraph had got its facts wrong, it enthusiastically joined the media throng once the level of public outrage became clear.
Since then the BBC has ripped into the story - and quite right too. With its multiple television and radio outlets, not to mention its website, the Corporation has played a major role in the expenses scandal, and has infuriated many MPs.
But that does not mean the Public Accounts Committee doesn't have a fair point. Over the past three weeks the outcry against MPs has been based on the proposition - which no one seeks to challenge - that we have a right to know how taxpayers' money is spent.
Public servants must be accountable. If this applies to Members of Parliament, it should also apply to employees of the BBC, who are funded by the licence fee, a mandatory tax for anyone in this country owning a television.
All right, I know that MPs pass laws, and it might be thought that the way in which they lavish our money on themselves is of particular interest to us.
But employees of the BBC are no less public servants, and I venture to suggest that there may have been abuses within the BBC which make some of the excesses of members of Parliament look like pretty small beer.
Three years ago, leaked documents showed that Sir Terry Wogan was on £800,000 a year. The disc jockey Chris Moyles earned £630,000 a year, while the Today presenter John Humphrys, whose programme attracts almost as many listeners, received a much more modest £150,000 a year.
The most scandalous revelation concerned the loud-mouth presenter Jonathan Ross, who is on an annual salary of £6 million for his television work, plus a trifling £530,000 a year for his radio appearances.
Now it may be that the public is perfectly happy about these stupendous pay packages, and would be equally comfortable if it knew the full details of the salaries of all highly paid BBC presenters. I sincerely doubt it, though.
Most people would probably believe that these salaries are excessive, and that it would be possible to retain most of these over pampered stars much more cheaply. Licence payers' money is being squandered.
In the old days it used to be argued, with some validity, that the BBC had to pay huge amounts to compete with commercial television and radio.
Since then ITV has virtually gone broke, while many independent radio stations are being driven to the wall, with more than a little help from the publicly funded BBC. With very few exceptions, commercial broadcasters are no longer in a position to pay the whopping salaries they used to.
Far from retrenching, though, the BBC appears to be pushing out the boat still further. The Commons Public Accounts Committee reckons it pays some of its radio stars more than twice the amount commercial radio stations pay theirs.
Independent broadcasters are therefore finding it more difficult to recruit good people. As in so many other parts of its ever widening sphere of activities, the BBC is using public money to shore up its position at the expense of its commercial rivals.
The case of Jonathan Ross is particularly grotesque, and I am sure there are other scandalous examples we don't know about. If I had my way, I would not pay him 5p, but I accept that he has his fans. There is, though, absolutely no need to pay him £6million a year. It is obscene. ITV could never match that money.
BBC bosses are now considering cutting Ross's pay package in half because they have finally woken up to the realisation that he has nowhere else to go.
It is a pity it did not dawn on them earlier, in which case they could have saved us millions of pounds. How many decent programmes could they have made with that money? How many tiresome repeats might they have spared us?
All this is surely a matter for public interest, and it is disgraceful that the BBC, the scourge of MPs over their expenses, should be blocking disclosure of information in its own back yard.
If it had nothing to hide, it would not be so obsessively secretive. Its behaviour is no better than that of those MPs who wanted to exempt themselves from the Freedom of Information Act in order to conceal their misappropriation of public funds.
And I am afraid it does not end there. BBC expenses amounting to tens of millions of pounds are not properly examined. Though curtailed in recent years for its ordinary foot soldiers, these remain generous for more senior employees.
Whenever there is an international event, the Corporation dispatches many more staff than any other media organisation - an unbelievable 437 in the case of the Beijing 2008 Olympics - and all of them have to be fed and watered. I should be astonished if money is not being wasted on expenses on a grand scale.
But we don't know the details because the BBC, devoted to full disclosure where the affairs of other public institutions are concerned, is as forthcoming as the Soviet Politburo in respect of its own.
Caroline Thomson, chief operating officer of the BBC, recently made an appearance on Radio 4's Feedback programme. Despite being grilled by a commendably terrier-like Roger Bolton, she refused to accept that the public has any right to know what BBC stars are paid, though she did ludicrously propose that it might release 'salary bands'.
Until a few weeks ago many MPs plainly did not get it. They did not understand that hard-pressed taxpayers do not want to see public money wasted or stolen. In a similar way, highly paid BBC bosses do not get it either.
Because they are insulated from the pressures affecting commercial broadcasters, they behave as though they have a kind of divine right to conduct their affairs as they think fit - almost as though the rest of us did not exist.
Swarms of them pay themselves vast salaries, if not quite on the scale of their stars. Year by year they expand the power and scope of the BBC while commercial media organisations struggling in the real economy are forced to cut back.
And when the Tories recently suggested freezing the licence fee for a year or two, Sir Michael Lyons, Chairman of the BBC Trust, idiotically spoke about the Corporation's editorial independence being threatened. What kind of bizarre alternative universe does he inhabit?
Such institutional arrogance cannot persist unchallenged for ever. The BBC comforts itself that it is much loved by the people. That is what the Mother of Parliaments once thought. But great public institutions cannot be immune to scrutiny.
If the BBC continues to lavish licence-payers' money as though it were its own money - if it goes on, like the Commons, behaving as a private club with its own idiosyncratic rules - it will discover before very long that the public's great love for it is distinctly limited.
By Stephen Glover
Do we have a right to know what BBC stars are paid? The Commons Public Accounts Committee is certain we do. It has called the Corporation 'disgraceful' over its refusal to reveal the salaries of top stars and presenters.
This condemnation by MPs can doubtless be partly seen as a response to the BBC's role in the expenses scandal.
Though it was initially a bit sniffy about the story, with some of its early news bulletins implying that the Daily Telegraph had got its facts wrong, it enthusiastically joined the media throng once the level of public outrage became clear.
Since then the BBC has ripped into the story - and quite right too. With its multiple television and radio outlets, not to mention its website, the Corporation has played a major role in the expenses scandal, and has infuriated many MPs.
But that does not mean the Public Accounts Committee doesn't have a fair point. Over the past three weeks the outcry against MPs has been based on the proposition - which no one seeks to challenge - that we have a right to know how taxpayers' money is spent.
Public servants must be accountable. If this applies to Members of Parliament, it should also apply to employees of the BBC, who are funded by the licence fee, a mandatory tax for anyone in this country owning a television.
All right, I know that MPs pass laws, and it might be thought that the way in which they lavish our money on themselves is of particular interest to us.
But employees of the BBC are no less public servants, and I venture to suggest that there may have been abuses within the BBC which make some of the excesses of members of Parliament look like pretty small beer.
Three years ago, leaked documents showed that Sir Terry Wogan was on £800,000 a year. The disc jockey Chris Moyles earned £630,000 a year, while the Today presenter John Humphrys, whose programme attracts almost as many listeners, received a much more modest £150,000 a year.
The most scandalous revelation concerned the loud-mouth presenter Jonathan Ross, who is on an annual salary of £6 million for his television work, plus a trifling £530,000 a year for his radio appearances.
Now it may be that the public is perfectly happy about these stupendous pay packages, and would be equally comfortable if it knew the full details of the salaries of all highly paid BBC presenters. I sincerely doubt it, though.
Most people would probably believe that these salaries are excessive, and that it would be possible to retain most of these over pampered stars much more cheaply. Licence payers' money is being squandered.
In the old days it used to be argued, with some validity, that the BBC had to pay huge amounts to compete with commercial television and radio.
Since then ITV has virtually gone broke, while many independent radio stations are being driven to the wall, with more than a little help from the publicly funded BBC. With very few exceptions, commercial broadcasters are no longer in a position to pay the whopping salaries they used to.
Far from retrenching, though, the BBC appears to be pushing out the boat still further. The Commons Public Accounts Committee reckons it pays some of its radio stars more than twice the amount commercial radio stations pay theirs.
Independent broadcasters are therefore finding it more difficult to recruit good people. As in so many other parts of its ever widening sphere of activities, the BBC is using public money to shore up its position at the expense of its commercial rivals.
The case of Jonathan Ross is particularly grotesque, and I am sure there are other scandalous examples we don't know about. If I had my way, I would not pay him 5p, but I accept that he has his fans. There is, though, absolutely no need to pay him £6million a year. It is obscene. ITV could never match that money.
BBC bosses are now considering cutting Ross's pay package in half because they have finally woken up to the realisation that he has nowhere else to go.
It is a pity it did not dawn on them earlier, in which case they could have saved us millions of pounds. How many decent programmes could they have made with that money? How many tiresome repeats might they have spared us?
All this is surely a matter for public interest, and it is disgraceful that the BBC, the scourge of MPs over their expenses, should be blocking disclosure of information in its own back yard.
If it had nothing to hide, it would not be so obsessively secretive. Its behaviour is no better than that of those MPs who wanted to exempt themselves from the Freedom of Information Act in order to conceal their misappropriation of public funds.
And I am afraid it does not end there. BBC expenses amounting to tens of millions of pounds are not properly examined. Though curtailed in recent years for its ordinary foot soldiers, these remain generous for more senior employees.
Whenever there is an international event, the Corporation dispatches many more staff than any other media organisation - an unbelievable 437 in the case of the Beijing 2008 Olympics - and all of them have to be fed and watered. I should be astonished if money is not being wasted on expenses on a grand scale.
But we don't know the details because the BBC, devoted to full disclosure where the affairs of other public institutions are concerned, is as forthcoming as the Soviet Politburo in respect of its own.
Caroline Thomson, chief operating officer of the BBC, recently made an appearance on Radio 4's Feedback programme. Despite being grilled by a commendably terrier-like Roger Bolton, she refused to accept that the public has any right to know what BBC stars are paid, though she did ludicrously propose that it might release 'salary bands'.
Until a few weeks ago many MPs plainly did not get it. They did not understand that hard-pressed taxpayers do not want to see public money wasted or stolen. In a similar way, highly paid BBC bosses do not get it either.
Because they are insulated from the pressures affecting commercial broadcasters, they behave as though they have a kind of divine right to conduct their affairs as they think fit - almost as though the rest of us did not exist.
Swarms of them pay themselves vast salaries, if not quite on the scale of their stars. Year by year they expand the power and scope of the BBC while commercial media organisations struggling in the real economy are forced to cut back.
And when the Tories recently suggested freezing the licence fee for a year or two, Sir Michael Lyons, Chairman of the BBC Trust, idiotically spoke about the Corporation's editorial independence being threatened. What kind of bizarre alternative universe does he inhabit?
Such institutional arrogance cannot persist unchallenged for ever. The BBC comforts itself that it is much loved by the people. That is what the Mother of Parliaments once thought. But great public institutions cannot be immune to scrutiny.
If the BBC continues to lavish licence-payers' money as though it were its own money - if it goes on, like the Commons, behaving as a private club with its own idiosyncratic rules - it will discover before very long that the public's great love for it is distinctly limited.