This is taken from Broadcast Online:

Big Bonus Corporation
Geoff White
15 December 2005 07:50


The BBC has paid out more than £15m in staff bonuses in the same year it began axing 3,780 jobs across the corporation.

Broadcast can reveal that almost half the corporation's staff - more than 10,000 people - have been given bonus payments, totalling £15.5m in the past year.

The figure does not include the £546,000 bonus payments to members of the executive board, or bonuses to staff working for BBC Worldwide, its commercial arm.

The bonus payment figure is not listed in the corporation's annual report and only came to light after Broadcast made a Freedom of Information request to director of BBC people Stephen Dando.

The news comes at the end of a year in which BBC director general Mark Thompson began axing thousands of jobs in order to make £221m of annual savings, and called for an inflation-busting 2.3% rise in the licence fee, which could reach £180 by 2012.

The bonus payouts were criticised by John Whittingdale, Conservative MP and chairman of the House of Commons media select committee, who said it was "highly likely" the issue would be raised by the committee when the next annual report is released in the summer.

"The BBC is a publicly owned corporation and should be transparent about the salaries it pays its employees," he said. "I'm not critical of paying bonuses, but paying bonuses to a large number of its staff usually gives the impression that this is a way of increasing their salaries without making it public."

News of the bonuses will also anger union officials, who have been fighting Thompson's attempts to cut 3,780 jobs at the BBC over the next three years.

"I think it sends the wrong message," said Bectu assistant general secretary Gerry Morrissey. "It's bad to be saying to one member of staff 'here's a bonus', and telling another member of staff that he's redundant."

The BBC defended the payouts, which it said were to reward "exceptional" performance and are in line with those of other media organisations.

"While managers are always mindful of the need to take great care with licence fee money, even during a period of cost-cutting it is vital to reward members of staff who deliver high-quality work," said a spokeswoman.

"This system helps ensure that the BBC attracts and retains the best staff, for the benefit of licence fee payers."