Salmon to face Commons committee over BBC move
THE director of BBC North Peter Salmon will be quizzed by the House of Commons public accounts committee in Salford next week.
The committee is decamping to the city on June 10 to look around the BBC’s new offices at MediaCityUK and scrutinise senior management about the corporation’s move north.
The BBC’s chief financial officer Zarin Patel and BBC trustee Anthony Fry will also be questioned.
It follows a National Audit Office report into the move last month which found relocation packages were too generous, with 188 staff receiving £50,000 or more and 11 between £100,000 and £150,000.
Committee chair Margaret Hodge said: “The BBC did well to complete its move to Salford on time and under budget, and it managed to avoid any disruption to TV and radio services.
“However, there are clearly question marks over the generosity of the relocation packages offered to staff, and in particular over some of the 91 exceptions to the relocation policy. £24m of taxpayers’ money was spent in compensating staff for moving to Salford and the BBC has got to be properly open and transparent about its use of the licence fee.
“The BBC must now focus on ensuring it successfully delivers the longer term aims of the move. It has the opportunity to make an important contribution to tackling the North-South divide at the same time as becoming more efficient, which it needs to do in order to achieve the £151m savings it has to make by 2030.”
