Barclays: A page to be updated

[french frank]

it's my view that if you pay low, you'll get dross.

Let's hope Mr Entwistle doesn't turn out to be dross, given the enormous salary cut he's accepting - £450,000 compared with his predecessor's basic £668,000 last year.

I don't think it's naive to point out a difference between a publicly funded service and a commercial company running on its trading income and profits.

[An_Inspector_Calls]

Let's hope Mr Entwistle doesn't turn out to be dross, given the enormous salary cut he's accepting - £450,000 compared with his predecessor's basic £668,000 last year.

I don't think it's naive to point out a difference between a publicly funded service and a commercial company running on its trading income and profits.

Well rather then disingenuous to suggest the BBC has no need to operate in a commercial fashion.

[french frank]

Well rather then disingenuous to suggest the BBC has no need to operate in a commercial fashion.

But the BBC's commercial arm (BBC Worldwide) has a separate Board of Directors (with execs and non-execs), plus an Executive Committee. It is a wholly owned subsidiary, but it has diddly squat to do with the main BBC Executive Board.

BBC Worldwide contributed £182m to the BBC last year, compared with the £3.5bn raised from the licence fee.

[Lateralthinking1]

I am surprised that so many of the hours of the NEDs are spent with the other execs, seeing that scrutiny and oversight require a certain independence and distance.

I have some experience of these things in more mundane circles. Where I happened to be, committees monitoring other committees were commonplace. The same names cropped up each time. One got the feeling sometimes that those on salaries around £100,000 spent 50% of their time just talking. For 23 of my 25 years, I wasn't a part of it. Then, suddenly, as I became more active in the union, whose stalwarts of many decades incidentally were hardly welcoming, something odd happened. Boards started to invite one or two ordinary people to be temporary members. I kept being picked for them although they had thousands in the average pool.

My feeling was that I was being partially incorporated to be managed. There I found among the upper echelons banal chit-chat in the main. Quite a bit of absenteeism too. We were set tasks each week to fill in gimmicky charts based on wider consultation and asked to give feedback during the week. I would ring the obscenely well-paid coordinator and receive elaborate thanks, a tone of astonishment that I had called and a little impatience as if she hadn't factored any calls into her diary. Then we would all get to the meeting. It would frequently emerge that I was one of just two who had bothered. We would have five minutes on it and then just a lot of meandering. People talking about interaction at every level and having decided already what we were going to do.

The most animation among the bigwigs occurred when it was announced that we would be filmed. In that way, we would be seen by all staff on the internal net for our wonderful analysis and oversight. They loved it. It came with an instruction, universally agreed, that we should talk up the efficiency to alleviate concerns. At that point, I said no. I would leave when the cameras arrived. They agreed but filmed me entering the room anyway. Microphones hovered around my sub-group for the duration. My overriding impression was that it was all one big con but such was the pressure to toe the line I wouldn't have been able to say so.

[Budapest]

So you are privy to the commercial terms under which BBC America gets to show BBC programmes?

You don't think, before you get on your hobby horse yet again, that there might just be a significant chunk of money coming back into the BBC's coffers to make programmes?

No, thought not.

I'm really not up to speed with the latest BBC stuff. I suppose the point I was trying to make is that BBC licence payers in the UK don't always realise how much the BBC rakes in overseas, which is huge amounts of money. BBC America is the biggest money-spinner, which is a channel that has adverts, big money adverts. There's also BBC Merchandising, flogging fluffy toys etc that are related to programmes. Heck, it goes on and on.

I'm not sure how you can say that these huge amounts of money/profit go towards making programmes, since BBC programme quality has gone down the tubes in recent years. I can't see how services like Radio 3 will survive in this climate of profit/greed.

The BBC World Service (both tv and radio) is interesting because it's funded by the secret service budget, and not by the BBC licence fee. Arguably, the standard of programmes on the World Service is miles better than those on the BBC, even though the World Service is a mouthpiece for the British government.

Relating to what I said in a previous post, I'd be really interested if anyone can tell me just how many on-air economics/business correspondants the BBC has (my guess is at least ten) and how much they all get paid?

[french frank]

As far as the BBC's Executive board (and M Agius) are concerned I'll bow out on this.

What I have been trying to say about the EB pay has been said better already:

"Informed sources point the finger resolutely towards the key role of the BBC executive board remuneration committee, which is chaired by Marcus Agius, chairman of Barclays Bank and the senior non-executive director of the corporation. They also add that the composition of the executive committee, which includes business-oriented non-executive directors, is "very light on public service values and experience".

'Public service values' being quite important.

The BBC World Service (both tv and radio) is interesting because it's funded by the secret service budget

Not quite sure what this means. It has been, until recently, funded by the F&CO but under the last Charter settlement the current government succeeded in changing the rules so that now the BBC pays for it out of its own funding.

[handsomefortune]

£3.5bn raised from the licence fee.

gasp! that certainly puts the beeb's 'commercial fashion' into a very different perspective! apologies for my naivety but why, in your opinion inspector calls, does the bbc have to compete?

increasingly, people tend not to subscribe to theories such as 'low salaries' automatically 'equal dross' - there are so many contradictions to this theory, which sound particularly dubious in current contexts. after all psb isn't second hand car sales, or something notoriously disingenuous is it?

personally, i wouldn't call the beeb 'dross' (as yet) exactly but it does have some very disappointing aspects, often disguised as 'progress', and excused by vague theories about 'competition' as expounded by the previous dg...not that they ever made any sense to me whatsoever.

entwistle can't be as unpopular as thompson ...can he? that he's not as greedy and self serving is a bonus to citizens (for a change), though it depends whether entwistle carries on chipping away at psb ethics, as to his actual worth of course.

the fact is not everything is measured numerically, or in terms of what other commercial orgs are doing.

[Lateralthinking1]

'Public service values' being quite important......(World Service) until recently, funded by the F&CO but under the last Charter settlement the current government succeeded in changing the rules so that now the BBC pays for it out of its own funding.

Aung San Suu Kyi has some opinions on the World Service changes.

I don't believe that public service values now exist in management. Consequently, it hardly matters if private sector people are mostly involved. It would be nice if they weren't corrupt and were paid amounts that reflected enthusiasm rather than supposed business value.

No BBC board to date has made the outgoings transparent. No board of the high and mighty ever will do. We need Ministers who insist, if necessary through legislation, on the public being able to see what they are getting for their money. There should be a year's grace so that all expenditure can be allocated something like normally.

Currently, no one is working to defend the BBC as an institution, including the BBC with its ludicrous arrangements.

[handsomefortune]

Currently, no one is working to defend the BBC as an institution,

steve hewlett on r4 'the media show' makes a valiant effort ... but it's just a drop in the ocean.

[french frank]

No BBC board to date has made the outgoings transparent. No board of the high and mighty ever will do.

They do produce the Annual Report and Accounts (last year's will be published in a week or two, I guess), in standard Companies form. Not that everything is by any means clear - but a lot is.

[Lateralthinking1]

They do produce the Annual Report and Accounts (last year's will be published in a week or two, I guess), in standard Companies form. Not that everything is by any means clear - but a lot is.

I agree with handsomefortune on 95% of her two posts.

But as a licence payer, I am not content with the still huge salary going to George Entwistle, the salaries paid to his colleagues, the salaries paid to the NEDs, and the amounts being paid to celebrities so far as we can guess them. If the latter are not prepared to have open contracts, let them go, as many have, to Press TV, Iran.

In earlier informative posts, we have been given details about the role of NEDs in organisations like the BBC. To precis, we are being asked to believe that they have the ability to advise effectively in just a few hours annually on the following:

Strategy, performance, risk management, 'people', recruitment, remuneration, welfare, pensions, health and safety, career progression, training, image, stakeholder liaison, interaction with agencies and the environment.

I'm sorry. I don't believe that is credible. We need to limit their remit, if indeed there is a need to have them at all.

[french frank]

Currently, no one is working to defend the BBC as an institution,

Well, I would defend the BBC as an institution, for <ahem> what that's worth. But there are <ahem again> areas for concern... :-|

[handsomefortune]

all in all i think it might be a case which warrants crime writer p d james's return tbh.

[Budapest]

Not quite sure what this means. It has been, until recently, funded by the F&CO but under the last Charter settlement the current government succeeded in changing the rules so that now the BBC pays for it out of its own funding.

Fears for BBC World Service independence following funding switch

The James Bond funding was much more healthy for the World Service, some would argue.

[french frank]

Not quite sure what this means. It has been, until recently, funded by the F&CO but under the last Charter settlement the current government succeeded in changing the rules so that now the BBC pays for it out of its own funding.

Fears for BBC World Service independence following funding switch

The James Bond funding was much more healthy for the World Service, some would argue.

I still can't see any evidence for your claim that the World Service is/was funded by the secret service budget. It will be funded by the licence fee payer when this is switched from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. Or is the F&CO the same as the secret service?