BBC responds to Daily Mail's attack on staff payouts

Last Friday the Tabloid Watch blog monitored a dispute between the Daily Mail and the BBC. The Mail had published an article on Wednesday criticising the BBC, writing that:

"Half of BBC staff who pocketed £4m pay-off carried on working in the same job"

The newspaper claimed that 70 roles were being relocated to Salford, of which 17 "simply carried on in the same jobs" and 15 "decided to move to Salford anyway - where they were re-hired to do the same work, albeit for private companies".

The suggestion was that these 33 people - roughly half of the 70 - had continued in the same role even after the payouts had been given, implying that the £4 million payout had been wasted due to the resulting circumstances.

The BBC then published a rebuttal to the claims, charging that the article was "inaccurate and misrepresents the facts".

The Corporation confirmed that 70 roles had been closed at BBC studios as a direct result of the move to Salford, and confirmed that the payouts that had been given were legally agreed and negotiated with unions, rebuking claims in the Mail article from the Taxpayers' Alliance*.

The BBC deals with the 17 and 15 people in turn. The 17 who had supposedly carried on in the same roles because the new services in Salford were not fully operational at the time had their payouts "delayed" until they could be replaced, the BBC said.

This contradicts the Mail's headline which implies that these people had "pocketed" the payoffs before continuing in the roles. The Mail's reporting is not consistent however because in their article they also claim that the 17 carried on "after accepting" (although not necessarily receiving) the reduncancy money - which could be compatable with the BBC's claim if read precisely.

Meanwhile, regarding the 15 people who supposedly moved to Salford anyway, the BBC said it was "not aware" of any individuals who left their roles having been taken on by private companies in Manchester. In any case, as the Mail also conceded initially, they still ceased to work at the BBC.

Full Fact will be keeping track of how the Mail respond to the BBC's comments. A number of things are clear however.

The Mail's headline claiming that half of the BBC's laid off staff continued in the same job could easily be misunderstood, as the paper only asserts that 17 carried on in the same job, while the other 15 supposedly had 'similar' jobs outside the Corporation.

So the actual proportion who were charged as continuing in the same job after pocketing their payoffs was closer to a quarter rather than a half. The BBC says that even these only recieved the payout after the transition was complete.

At the same time, however, the destination of the 15 workers the Mail cites remains unclear. The BBC were unable to confirm or deny that the workers had been employed by private companies in Salford after having their former contract terminated. The Mail nevertheless cites a "BBC source" asserting exactly that.

UPDATE (22/02/2012)

*The Taxpayer's Alliance have contacted Full Fact to clarify that the claims made about "unecessary payouts" were made based on the Mail's reporting of the redundancies as presented to them rather than from their own analysis of the figures. Hence the claims still originate from the Mail.