Today we have published the latest detailed quarterly expenses of our 110 most senior executives at the Corporation, covering the period July-September 2010. This is part of our continuing programme of transparency, and is the sixth time that we have published quarterly expenses. The headline is that total expense claims are down 35% year-on-year.

We're also publishing more detail on Senior Manager pay than ever before, with information about the salary levels of the remaining 462 permanent Licence Fee-funded Senior Managers at the BBC. We know that Licence Fee payers want more information about how we spend their money, and this disclosure demonstrates that the BBC is continuing to lead the way in being open and transparent.

Finally, a quick update on our progress in reducing the number of Senior Managers and the amount we pay them at the BBC. Up to the end of December, we had cut the Senior Manager paybill by 13.6% and the number of senior managers by 8.5% from their August 2009 levels. By the end of the year we will make further reductions in order to deliver a 25% reduction in the pay bill and 20% reduction in headcount.

You can read more about our approach to reducing executives and talent pay here.

Caroline Thomson is the BBC's Chief Operating Officer

"The BBC has for some time now recognised that we must change and work harder to convince the public that we are spending the Licence Fee wisely. That is why over the last 15 months we have become both a more transparent organisation and a better value organisation, committed to serious reductions to senior manager numbers and pay.

"We are focussing relentlessly on delivering quality and better value. We are bearing down on costs right across the organisation so as much investment as possible goes into high-quality programmes. Whilst some expenses are necessary to do the job, the evidence shown today shows real and significant progress on that journey - we have cut expenses by a fifth and are reducing our pay bill by a quarter."

Caroline Thomson, BBC Chief Operating Officer

Today we have published details of salaries, expenses and gifts, for the BBC's senior staff. The disclosures show the divisions of the BBC which report directly to the Director-General, Mark Thompson.

For more detail around today's disclosures, read the real story behind BBC executive and talent pay and the press release.

Laura Murray is Editor of the About the BBC Blog

Read the blog Caroline Thomson wrote last year about the BBC Disclosures - April to June 2009.

Today we published quarter 4 of the BBC's 2009-10 disclosures around executive pay and expenses. The disclosures show the divisions of the BBC which report directly to the Director-General, Mark Thompson. They give details of salaries, expenses and central bookings, gifts and hospitality received, and now, an annual declaration of personal interests.


Laura Murray is Editor of the About the BBC Blog

• Caroline Thomson's blog on BBC Disclosure - April to June 2009

This is a brief post to announce that we've just published quarter three of our disclosures around executive pay and expenses.

You can read more about the latest disclosure here.

Last year, Mark Thompson said he would make the BBC more transparent to those who pay for it. He made a commitment to find new ways to show the public how we spend their compulsory licence fee to inform, educate and entertain everyone in the United Kingdom with quality programmes and services.

As part of this, we decided to provide information about the people who run the BBC, those who ensure that we meet our mission to serve the British public. So we decided to publish the names of the people in charge and the jobs they do, how much they get paid, what hospitality they receive, and what expenses they claim. And we committed to doing this on a regular basis. We have also, for the first time, provided a breakdown of our spend on on-screen and on-air performers.

With these steps, we have aimed to put the BBC at the forefront of transparency and public accountability. We have gone further than many other public bodies and we will continue to look for new ways to make ourselves more open to licence fee payers. And all this is in addition to the hundreds of requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) we respond to from journalists, politicians and members of the public.

Clearly, suddenly making information public that we've previously kept private has been a big change for many of us to get used to. Many people, no matter where they work, quite understandably expect that their salary should remain confidential between them and their employer. However, we decided that for senior managers at the BBC, those responsible for spending large amounts of public money, it is appropriate for the public to know how much they are paid. The public interest is greater than the personal discomfort.

In moving through this discomfort to a world where we are regularly publishing such a range of personal information about so many people, there is inevitably a vigorous internal debate in which sometimes unfortunate things are said. Yesterday, following a FOIA request from a journalist, we released a number of emails between BBC managers who were preparing for the disclosure of executive salaries in January. In one of them, one manager suggested changing the way the information was presented, to disguise the number of employees paid over £100,000.

This suggestion was dismissed by the BBC's Directors and the information was subsequently published in full in the already established bands as ruled upon by the Information Commissioner's Office. And we dismissed it because it is absolutely at odds with and counter to our complete belief that we need to change and become more open.

Although the contents of that email are embarrassing, I believe the incident actually underscores the BBC's commitment to transparency: a bad idea to disguise information from the public was rejected by the BBC's Directors; and the emails relating to the disclosure were released, unredacted, to a journalist who asked for them.

We will continue to push ourselves to ensure we remain at the vanguard of transparency and to demonstrate that we are securing value for money for licence fee payers.

This morning the BBC released additions to its original disclosures around executive pay and expenses. These include lists of the business-related expenses of the 107 most senior decision-makers in the Corporation for the period July to September 2009. We have also published the Gifts and hospitality register for these senior managers covering the period April to June and July to September 2009.

In addition to this we've published the total amount that we pay to artists, presenters, musicians and other contributors over the financial year that ended in March 2009. This comes to £229m - 6.56% of the Licence Fee (further details are contained here).

Here's a round-up of some of the headlines:

In the Daily Mail: 'BBC pays £230million every year to top presenters and actors'.

The Independent earlier in the day had the headline: 'BBC pays £229m a year for 'talent'' (though they later amended their online copy to read: 'BBC's top stars paid £54 million') while Broadcast gave us: 'BBC spent £229m on talent last year' (note: this is a subscriber only link).

The Guardian concentrated on the proportion that went to presenters earning more than £150,000 per annum with: 'BBC spent £54m on top-earning stars'.

Predictably, by this afternoon, the Evening Standard had escalated the revelation into an: 'Outrage over BBC cover-up of stars' £230m pay' - indicating that the story may still be appearing over the next few days.

Meanwhile the Telegraph while also running with the response of MPs to the talent disclosures ('BBC like the 'Duckhouse gang' for not disclosing star salaries, say MPs') but also focussed on the executive expenses, with: 'BBC executives' expenses up by 8 per cent'. Later in the day Broadcast also focused on executive cuts with: 'BBC execs cut back on presents' (subscriber only article), reporting that BBC execs had been, ' cutting back on claims for presents and extravagant schmoozing.'

Earlier this year, Mark Thompson made a commitment to make the BBC a leader in transparency in the public sector. Today, in an important step towards this goal, the BBC has published a new set of pages that clearly set out senior managers' pay and expenses along with a full job description. In this video I discuss with Konnie Huq the thinking behind this progressive move.

Not surprisingly, the BBC Trust's announcement last week that they had agreed to the DG's proposals to cut the total pay bill of senior managers at the BBC by 25% attracted quite a bit of comment. I was particularly interested to read David Elstein's blog yesterday in which he argued that "the sums don't add up" - I'm happy to respond to his challenge and explain how they do.

First of all, who are we talking about here? It is the nine Executive Board directors and 634 senior managers who are employed in the BBC's public service operations, and so whose salaries are paid for out of the licence fee. The supposed "missing" managers Elstein refers to are those who are not funded by the licence fee at all, but whose costs are met entirely by the BBC's commercial operations - not just BBC Worldwide, but also at BBC Studios and Post Production.

Next, how will cutting 114 jobs from this total save £20m? The answer is that it won't. Cutting the total number of senior managers was only one part of our proposal. The £20m being saved is from the BBC's total senior managers' pay bill, not managers' basic salaries alone. Alongside the reduction in the total number of managers - a large proportion of which will of course be achieved through natural churn, retirements and the conclusion of major projects such as managing the transition to Salford - we are also freezing bonuses for between two and four years at least, depending on grade. Where we do recruit replacements for senior managers who leave, which will only be after a stringent review of the post, it will be at a substantially lower salary as we reflect the realities of the current economic climate.

David Elstein concludes that "no one currently employed takes a cut at all". In fact, senior managers will earn 11-14.5% less in real terms by August 2013 than they did last year. Last week's report showed the BBC is already paying between 25% and 65% less than our commercial equivalents. In future we anticipate this could be up to 80% less.

We believe this is an achievable way of delivering greater value for money for the licence fee payer - whilst still providing the type of outstanding public service broadcasting the BBC is renowned for across the world.

(Lucy Adams is Director of BBC People. This post is a transcript of a response sent to today's Guardian)