When Are The Bbc Goign To Realize It Is Not Their Money?

[youngmafbog]

http://news.sky.com/story/1155105/bbc-criticised-for-24m-staff-relocation-costs

There were 11 cases where the cost exceeded £100,000 per person, with one costing £150,000.

I'm sure many hard pressed license payers will be pleased to here this.

The BBC seem to live in a different world (A right-on liberal do as I say not as I do one).

[emmie]

AH, which is also what i pointed out, high calibre guests don't want to take the train, bus, coach, pony and cart to Salford, they have better things to do, if they live that way it's perhaps a different matter. The BBC has gone the way of the many businesses that get too big and unwieldy, my last company was like that and it finally went bust, expansion is one thing but this was sheer folly, and it's not their money, so do they need to worry.

[Svejk]

Its hard to add to Andy's answer. Hit the nail on the head.
One woman who earned £850,000 a year claimed £40,000 for taxi fares.

[ichkeria]

Er, it IS their money! Doesn't mean that they should be profligate of course and it does make them accountable - but when you get paid for something that money tends to become yours by tradition :-)

[andy-hughes]

ichkeria - the issue is not about salaries - which quite rightly belong to the employees.

It's about the expenses they claim - which do not belong to them, they are claimed from the licence payers in a seriously who-cares manner.

[Svejk]

Oh yes, and they even claimed, and got paid, for the presents they 'bought' for each other.

[ichkeria]

Yes andy presumably they are. I'm not condoning extravagance but the money comes out of the licence fee it isn't billed to us separately.
And the bad thing is they have less money to spend on programmes. It's still their money. If it leads directly in the future to higher licence fees that is bad but the BBC can't just whack up the licence fee when it feels like it.

[andy-hughes]

ichkeria - i fail to understand your point.

If a publicly funded organisation is misusing an expenses system that is funded directly by non-voluntary public subscription, then that does not equate with BBC employees spending 'their' money.

Their salaries are theirs to spend as they wish, but the expenses they claim are an entirely separate issue, and because they are funded by the licence payers, it is beholden of the BBC to spend that portion of the licence fee with care and dilligence.

What occurs is the opposite, a bottomless pit of Monopoly money is splashed about with no redress, and that is the issue being debated.

[bazwillrun]

"Until a proper system of accountability - starting with the Trustees and working down - is implemented, then this situation will continue. "

it wont end until they are forced to compete like any other business.

as you say they think they are above and beyond everybody else,

they think they are untouchable...for now they are unfortunately

[jake-the-peg]

It wont end until they are forced to compete like any other business

Like water companies perhaps?


Lets face it the Right Whingers loathe the BBC for 2 reasons

Firstly they are pretty unbiased in the face of a massively right wing and biased press - which is why they're always claiming that they're biased - If you define the Mail and the Telegraph as the standard of impartiality anybody looks like a marxist

Secondly they are an acknowledged world leader in the quality of their product. I lose count of how many visiting Americans tell me how lucky we are in the quality of what they broadcast - who does better? SKY? don't make me laugh.

And they do this whilst not being a comericial company - they give the lie to the Tory idea that the market is king - They'd love to sell them off into private ownership to vindicate their political views that nothing good can come of something that is not profit centred - but the sheer quality of the BBC means they cant.



We're always talking about things that Britain is a world leader at

Won't you agree with me that the BBC is really one of those things where Britain leads the world?

[LazyGun]

Its not just right wingers that might object to over-generous salaries, padded expenses and what appears to be a plethora of middle management, all with overlapping responsibilities though, Jake. It should be a concern for all those who pay their licence, left or right, centre or monster raving loony party.

Addressing all criticism as solely a preserve of "right whingers" with a biased agenda against the BBC does the issue a disservice.

[andy-hughes]

jake - "Won't you agree with me that the BBC is really one of those things where Britain leads the world?"

Absolutely - but that does not give them the right to assume the arrogancec with which they spend money that it not theirs.

Ironically, the artists and programme makers who generate the BBC's reputation are often not those who splash their expenses around like some modern-day Midas's - it's the bureaucrats and suits in management and admin. who contrinute nothing of worth to anything.

[bazwillrun]

"Like water companies perhaps? "

errrr yeah, good comparison....you need to change your medication

[bazwillrun]

"I lose count of how many visiting Americans tell me how lucky we are in the quality of what they broadcast"

thats not saying much is it, hardly sets the bar high.....I really have no interest in what americans do or dont think of UK TV.

considering how much money is thrown at the BBC every year they damn well should be broadcasting "quality TV" ...depends on what you think constitutes "good quality" though doesnt it.

[DrFilth]

> Lets face it the Right Whingers loathe the BBC for 2 reasons <

i have just got my latest threat from them, what to expect in court


only a bbc fan or employee would say i was right wing

[andy-hughes]

trig - I would not dispute your figures, but the fact remains - BBC suits splash money around on expenses like it is not theirs to account for - which of course it isn't!

[redman41]

Scrap the TV Licence and let the BBC fend for itself. They will not be able to waste our money then

[FredPuli43]

Big corporations are pretty casual about paying for executives and incidental expenses too, and the sums here don't seem excessive. What the BBC seems to have succumbed to is one of Northcote Parkinson's Laws (not be confused with Michael Parkinson's Law of Sycophancy). I think it is his Second Law. That says that managers increase, each taking the opportunity to appoint assistant or deputy managers to help them. These, in turn, appoint other assistants and deputies, and so on ad infinitum. You end up with lots of managers doing the work of one, but all of them filling time with meetings and passing bits of paper to each other

[FredPuli43]

That the above Law afflicts private industry was related by a friend. She was head- hunted by a big insurance company. She reviewed the management structure and found, within a month, that 30 managers were really doing nothing but they looked as though they were doing something. To the company's credit, these were removed and nobody noticed any difference in efficiency when they'd gone.

[jake-the-peg]

OK Baz

US TV isn't a high bar

Name me a better quality broadcaster