Lord Patten targets ‘toxic’ executive pay to restore public sympathy for BBC

BBC Trust chairman hints at reducing number of managers earning above £150,000 and adoption of Hutton pay proposals Lord Patten, the BBC Trust chairman, has signalled that the corporation would address what he called a “toxic” public relations problem by cutting the pay of some of its most senior executives. In an interview on BBC1′s Andrew Marr Show, Patten hinted that the number of managers earning more than £150,000 would be reduced as part of a series of announcements designed to show the BBC was responding to the need to cut public spending. He said he would be taking up some of the proposals in the recent report by the Work Foundation’s Will Hutton into pay in the public sector. Patten spoke as it emerged that the BBC pays 19 presenters, actors and journalists more than £500,000 a year. The figures will be published in the corporation’s forthcoming annual report. Patten focused on executive pay rather than the salaries paid to onscreen stars. He said this was the biggest issue for the BBC because “what’s happened does seem to fly in the face of public service ethos”. The forthcoming announcement would cover four issues, Patten said. “First of all there’s the pay level at the very top; secondly there’s the number of people who get more than £150,000; thirdly there’s the number of people who are deemed to be senior managers; and fourthly there’s the whole issue of fairness across the board, with senior managers getting some deals which don’t apply to others. “We can deal with all that and if we do so, we will deal with one of the most toxic reasons for the public’s lack of sympathy with the BBC as an institution, even though they like enormously what it does.” Patten said he was particularly interested in the “very good ideas” in Hutton’s report on public sector pay, which rejected a suggestion that top pay in public sector bodies should be capped at 20 times median pay in the organisation. But Hutton said pay multiples should be published, any increase in the figure should be explained publicly and executives should receive some of their salary as “earn back” pay that would only be handed over if certain targets were met. Patten indicated he would adopt some of these recommendations. “I would like the BBC to be the first organisation in the public sector which actually gets into implementing some of Will Hutton’s ideas,” he said. Patten said the BBC was “a fantastic organisation”, but it should “take out a lot of costs” and learn to live within its £3.5bn budget. “Everybody is having to pull in their belts and I hope we can pull in ours while producing high-quality programmes still,” he said. The corporation’s annual report will publish the most detailed analysis of stars’ pay in the corporation’s history. It will not reveal the salaries paid to presenters, nor will it identify individuals, but the annual accounts, which will be unveiled next Tuesday, will show the number of performers who fall within a series of pay brackets. The corporation will confirm that since the departure of Jonathan Ross, who was reputed to earn £6m a year, it pays no performer more than £5m. Salary information for what the BBC terms its “top tier” of talent – those paid more than £1m a year – will be revealed. Attempts to force top presenters to take salary cuts, as well as the defection of Adrian Chiles to ITV, are understood to have brought the total paid to seven-figure stars down by £2.3m to £14.5m. The highest paid is thought to be Graham Norton, who banked a talent fee of £1.5m from his production outfit So Television, according the company’s latest accounts. He was also paid a dividend of £500,000 from the company’s profits, which include non-BBC activities. But the BBC will not reveal how many stars it pays more than £1m, citing data protection legislation. “We have had to aggregate the numbers from £500,000 upwards to prevent the individuals being identified,” a BBC source said. “This is based on strong legal advice. Our lawyers believe that if we break that number down any further there will be jigsaw identification and we will be in breach of our confidentiality obligations.” The total spent on presenters and performers has fallen for the second year running, dropping to £213m from £222m in 2009-10, according to figures seen by the Guardian. When performers who earn less than £100,000 are excluded from the equation, the numbers are also down, from £68m to £65m. Mark Thompson, the BBC director general, will use the figures to claim the corporation is making progress in its pledge to drive down talent costs. He is expected to point to the new hosts of The One Show, Matt Baker and Alex Jones, as examples of how the BBC is developing new presenters, but will nevertheless pledge that the corporation will still invest large amounts to draw in the best performers. BBC Lord Patten BBC Trust Executive pay and bonuses Television industry Television Andrew Sparrow guardian.co.uk

Posted by on July 3, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.