Record variety of BBC bigwigs are strolling away with six-figure pay-offs
Figures released by the BBC showed payoffs to top bosses last year accounted for more than half the total £69.6million paid to all BBC staff who received redundancy
A record number of BBC bigwigs walked away from the broadcaster last year with payoffs of more than £100,000.
Figures released by the corporation show in the last financial year a record 292 senior staff were handed six-figure pay outs after taking redundancy. The payouts to these senior BBC staff totalled £37.1million last year – enough to pay more than 200,000 TV licences – with each executive pocketing an average of almost £130,000 each.
These top bosses’ payoffs last year accounted for more than half the total of £69.6million that was paid out to all BBC staff who received redundancy payouts.
The BBC pays staff one month’s pay for every year employees have worked up to a maximum of 12 months’ pay for newer staff and up to two years’ pay for those who joined the corporation before January 2013.
In the last ten years the BBC has handed out a total of 6,256 redundancy cheques at a cost to the licence fee payer of £417million.
Of the payments 1,508 were six-figure settlements to senior staff that accounted for £193million of the total.
All these payments were made after the BBC received a public rebuke in 2013 from the National Audit Office (NAO) which stated “weak governance arrangements led to payments that exceeded contractual entitlements, provided poor value for money and put public trust at risk”.
It also highlighted the case of a senior manager who received a pay-off of £179,200, but then returned to the BBC for 20 days and was paid £9,650.
The BBC said that in 2013 it introduced a cap on redundancy payments that meant no payout was allowed to be more than £150,000.
Officials at the corporation, which charges £174.50-per-year for the TV licence, has had a turbulent year.
It has faced allegations of unacceptable behaviour by some of its stars, including bullying claims on BBC Breakfast, drug taking on Strictly Come Dancing and sexist and racist behaviour by the presenters on MasterChef.
It also dropped a documentary on the Israel-Palestine conflict when it emerged it featured a Hamas official’s child and it livestreamed an act at Glastonbury where a punk duo led a chant calling for death to Israeli soldiers.
Joanna Marchong, investigations campaigns manager of the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: “Hard-pressed households will be furious that the BBC is showering departing bosses with golden goodbyes worth more than £100,000 a time.
“Licence fee payers are forced to cough up under threat of prosecution, yet their money is being splurged on eye-watering redundancy cheques for executives.
“With nearly half a billion pounds wasted on payoffs in the past decade, it’s clear something is rotten at the heart of the BBC. Ministers must finally face up to this cover-up culture and stop licence fee payers being treated like a cash machine for waste and excess.”
A BBC spokesperson said: “We are restructuring to create a leaner, more agile organisation to better serve audiences and deliver greater value for money for licence fee payers, with 2,000 fewer roles now in BBC public service.
“Like other organisations, we have contractual obligations to fulfil when staff at all levels are made redundant. The ongoing savings from people leaving the BBC far exceed the costs from one-off payments, which have been capped since 2013.”
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