BBC complaints and corrections system to be overhauled

8 March 2012

The BBC Trust — the body responsible for monitoring the broadcaster's output and governance — today announced proposals for an overhaul of its complaints system aimed at making the process "faster, simpler and easier to understand."

Among the changes being suggested by the Trust are the establishment of a dedicated corrections and clarifications page on the BBC website, the hiring of a 'Chief Complaints Editor' and the production of a guide to the process.

Regular Full Fact readers will know that these moves are not before time, as we have criticised the slow and opaque way in which the BBC had handled our requests for corrections in the past.

Complaints would often go unacknowledged even after they had been resubmitted, and when the record was corrected it often took several weeks or months.

As we told the Leveson Inquiry into media standards:

"It may surprise you to learn that the Press Complaints Commission actually has a much more helpful complaints process than the BBC, even though its effectiveness leaves much to be desired. Some of the things the PCC does well include the ease of making a complaint; acknowledgements; direct contact with human beings, round the clock if necessary; and helpful staff who persist with a complaint until the complainant is satisfied. All these basics are missing at the BBC, where your web form disappears into the ether and in our experience usually doesn't even get a response."

The House of Lords Communication Committee agreed, calling the process "confusing" and "complicated."

To his credit these shortcomings were quickly identified by the incoming BBC Trust Chairman Lord Patten when he took the reins in May last year, and they were one of the areas targeted in the governance review begun in July of that year.

The full set of proposals have been published here, and the Trust now wants to hear the thoughts of the public via a six week public consultation.

Full Fact will of course be one of those responding (and we'd encourage our readers to do so too), but we are pleased that the BBC seems to have taken on board our concerns about the pace and complexity of the corrections process, and now seems to be taking action to remedy these problems.

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