About the BBC Feed

BBC Weather: Why we run an open competition for the service

2015-08-24T15:45:00+00:00

Nigel Charters, Project Director, BBC Weather re-procurement explains the rationale behind the process to secure the future of the BBC's weather service.

It is often said that weather is the national obsession. We know this to be true because our weather app is downloaded 15 times a minute and our bulletins are watched by millions.

BBC weather is important to us. We care about it and will always be innovative and ambitious in how we present it. However, with our current Met Office contract due to expire in 14 months we began a formal re-procurement about a year ago. As we last did in 2009.

The overarching aim for us is to maintain and enhance our position as the leading destination for weather information, whilst improving the service available to global audiences. This is founded on a reputation for high-quality timely, accurate distinctive and innovative content across all platforms.

First, let’s deal with the legal side of things. All publicly funded organisations in this country are considered something called a ‘contracting authority’ under the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 introduced by the Government. Those regulations implement the EU's 2014 Public Sector Procurement Directiveand state a contract must be awarded to the ‘Most Economically Advantageous Tender’, which is the optimum combination of both quality of the services offered and the cost.

This means that wherever public money is being spent the BBC is legally obliged to go through an open competition to avoid any inappropriate influence in awarding such contracts.

Under this law we are duty bound to consider and treat equally all the bids we receive from companies across Europe. We then take forward the strongest bid to make sure we secure both the best possible service and value for money for the licence fee payer.

In June last year we published a notice in the EU Journal of our intentions to tender two contracts: one for the supply of weather data and on air presenters and one for the supply of weather graphics.

The Met Office currently supplies the weather services and, people may not realise this, an independent private company called MetraWeather supplies the graphics. Incidentally, our Shipping Forecasts won’t change. We will continue to broadcast the reports on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (who use Met Office data) and we will continue to issue the Met Office’s National Severe Weather Warnings.

We expect to be able to take a final decision on the procurement later this year, but in order to keep the process moving we have now shortlisted the best bidders.

We have valued the Met Office’s relationship immensely over the years and were clear we wanted them to put in a very strong proposal. But we have to consider all bids fairly. So last week we had to inform a number of bidders, including the Met Office, that having done a detailed evaluation of all the bids we are not in a position to take forward their proposals to provide the service from late 2016.

We know our viewers expect the highest standard of weather service and what they get won’t change. We will not compromise on quality.

The way we provide information will continue to evolve, taking advantage of technology changes where it makes new things possible. We have worked hard in recent years to create new products for our audiences to satisfy an ever increasing appetite for information. This includes the app, a ten day forecast, a world weather forecast for a UK audience and much more use of forecast confidence and science in our broadcasts. A quarter of all people now check the weather from us on their mobiles and we’ll carry on innovating.

In addition, we also want to maintain the high quality of our on-air presentation. We have always had a team made up of a mix of meteorologists and experienced, trained weather presenters. We don’t anticipate any significant changes to our on-air presenting team in the near future.

Those companies still in the process have proven track records for delivering weather services to some of the biggest broadcasters around the world, including other UK broadcasters and national newspapers.

So the outlook remains positive. BBC Weather will continue to produce the authoritative, reliable, accurate and modern weather service on which our audiences rely.

Nigel Charters is Project Director, BBC Weather re-procurement

Tour Guide Industrial Dispute

2013-04-23T06:57:14+00:00

BBC tour guides at Broadcasting House are taking strike action today. I’m disappointed about this as we have recently had some positive discussions and I know how keen both sides are to resolve the situation. However I’m pleased to say that we have still been able to accommodate everyone who had pre-booked a tour so visitors haven’t been affected.

There are two issues in dispute. Firstly the reduction of the length of shifts following the move of tours from Television Centre to Broadcasting House – this is because the tours are shorter meaning that the potential earnings each month is lower. The tours are shorter because the building is smaller and there are different retail and security arrangements. However even with the shorter hours available, guides will still have the opportunity to work significantly more hours than they are contracted to do depending on how may shifts they sign up for.

Guides are only contracted for 6.25 hours (i.e. one shift) per month. Many choose to do more shifts than that and to date we have always worked that way as it suited both sides. Our requirements fluctuate slightly depending on how many tours we are offering each month, and many of the guides have other freelance work such as acting and this type of contract allows them to easily take time away from the BBC to pursue other jobs when it suits them.

Unfortunately there is no getting away from the fact that shorter tours means a financial impact for the guides because there are less overall hours available to work. Put simply, I don’t believe that we can justify paying tour guides from the licence fee for hours they are not working. Around a third of the costs of running the tours comes from the licence fee and we must ensure that money is used appropriately.

Secondly we are asking the guides to wear a uniform. Our other tour guides round the UK already do this and we believe it is appropriate that, as the face of the BBC, they wear BBC branded clothes while working with members of the public.

Any strike action is regrettable and it will not alter these facts. We remain open to discussions with the guides and we are already looking at a number of suggestions they made at a meeting last week so we are hopeful that progress can be made.

Philip Almond is Director of BBC Marketing and Audiences.

BBC expenses and senior manager salary disclosure

2011-01-20T12:40:50+00:00

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

BBC Disclosures Quarter One - April to June 2010

2010-10-15T11:02:04+00:00

"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.

BBC Disclosures: Quarter 4 2009-10

2010-07-15T10:38:45+00:00

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

BBC executive pay and expenses: October to December 2009

2010-04-19T15:01:07+00:00

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

Continuing the drive for transparency

2010-04-01T15:44:48+00:00

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 Â£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.

BBC Disclosure: July to September 2009 - a Press Roundup

2010-02-09T16:53:33+00:00

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 Â£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 Â£230million every year to top presenters and actors'.

The Independent earlier in the day had the headline: 'BBC pays Â£229m a year for 'talent'' (though they later amended their online copy to read: 'BBC's top stars paid Â£54 million') while Broadcast gave us: 'BBC spent Â£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 Â£150,000 per annum with: 'BBC spent Â£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' Â£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.'

BBC Disclosure - April to June 2009

2009-11-12T08:32:30+00:00

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.

The BBC must always be accountable to the public which funds it and today's announcement is another step on the road to ever greater transparency and openness. We are meeting this challenge at a time when the public are demanding greater levels of accountability across the entire public sector and the BBC is determined not just to deliver the basic information but to do so in a way which marks a step-change in openness, simplicity and accountability. We are meeting the spirit as well as the letter of the law.

So today we are taking a significant step forward in opening up the BBC. In publishing the precise salaries and full business-related expenses for more than one hundred senior managers at the BBC we are going way beyond the disclosure of executive board level directors that many comparable organisations reveal. We are doing this because we believe it is the right thing to do, and there should be transparency around how we reward the most senior members of staff. These individuals have been identified according to their salary, their responsibilities and influence for spending public money and for overseeing the BBC's services and operations. The publication includes a number of the individuals whose salaries and expenses were published earlier in the year.

We are also going further in providing complete transparency over business-related expenses. Most organisations account for expenses in two ways - out-of-pocket business expenses, and centrally booked costs. Where the BBC is different is that we are publishing both, which are listed today in two categories - e-expenses and central bookings. Central bookings relate to services that have been booked using the BBC's centralised system such as taxis, flights and hotels. E-expenses are costs that are incurred by individuals such as hospitality and business meals or travel when they cannot access the central bookings system.

We are also building on our disclosure policy earlier in the year where we kept redactions to a minimum. In total just under 3,000 lines of information have been published today and the BBC has made redactions to only 1% of the records to protect confidentiality.

Of course there has been much debate in the media about the level of senior managers' pay at the BBC. The figures published today represent senior management salaries and expenses for April to June 2009. In the context of today's announcement it is important to remember that we recently announced that we will be reducing the total pay bill for senior managers by 25% over the next three years and will be reducing the number of senior managers by 18% over the same period. Alongside a new remuneration policy for senior managers we published a report that found we are paying between 25% and 65% less for our senior managers than comparable organisations.

Inevitably in a painful recession any spend is likely to attract comment. However, in reviewing today's material I am of the view that when you hold up both the salaries of our senior managers and their expenses to other comparable organisations in our industry we have a record which stands up to scrutiny. It is also important to recognise that many of the meetings where expenses are incurred result in deals being secured that generate millions of pounds in terms of co-production money and programme sales which the BBC can then reinvest in BBC content that I hope the public enjoy and value.

Our decision to disclose salaries and business-related expenses I believe demonstrates a new era of openness at the BBC.

With that in mind, we decided not simply to publish a 3,000-line spreadsheet, but instead to order and present the information in a way that is most useful. The public will be able to find the information that we have announced today on the About the BBC section of the BBC website. Here not only will people find the precise financial details of the executives listed, but it also sets out specific detail on each senior manager in terms of management and decision-making responsibility.

The next publication will be in the first quarter of 2010, when we will publish the expenses for July to September 2009. Alongside this we will publish a precise total amount that the BBC spends on talent alongside the Register of Interests and Gifts & Hospitality.

Ultimately we hope that today's announcement and the process that we started earlier this year will go some way to dispelling the myths that are sometimes propagated about the BBC and how it operates. We recognise that there is still some distance to go, but we are confident that the final destination will be a stronger, deeper relationship with our audience based on trust and their belief that the BBC continues to have an important role to play in their lives. Read more about the announcement.