The BBC’s new director general has proposed capping executive pay-offs at £150,000 after the corporation faced stinging criticism over several large redundancy deals.
Tony Hall was appointed this month after George Entwistle stepped down last year, who spent just seven weeks in the post during the Newsnight fiasco over Lord McAlpine and was given a £450,000 redundancy payment.
Lord Hall’s proposals will see senior managers entitled to one month’s pay for each year of service, up to a maximum of 12 months’ salary or £150,000, whichever is lower, bringing the BBC into line with arrangements for civil servants.
Lord Hall, 62, said: “I appreciate that making changes to existing contracts is never easy. But it is to the great credit of the senior leadership team at the BBC that there is broad recognition of the need for change.”
In September 2012, chief operating officer Caroline Thomson left the BBC with a £670,000 pay-off, while deputy director general Mark Byford received £949,000 in 2011.
Recently published figures show that 10 other leading figures at the BBC received severance packages in recent years amounting to £4 million.
The measures are due to be introduced in September and will affect 250 people and Lord Hall added: “We are consulting with staff and unions. It’s a contractual change for senior managers and other members of staff, which we rightly have to consult on.
“I am confident we will get the agreement and people will see the sense of it. It is a matter of principle for me and something that responds to the public mood.”
Lord Hall, who has been with the corporation for 40 years, has previously criticised the large pay-offs given to senior staff.
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Michelle Stanistreet, general secretary of the National Union of Journalists, welcomed the announcement after calling for a cap following a series of severance payments.
“This is a welcome development,” she said. “These obscene payments were being paid while other members of the BBC were being forced out of their jobs.
“I hope this is the first of a number of measures by Lord Hall to cut waste at the BBC. He has inherited a deal brokered by former director-general Mark Thompson in which the licence fee is frozen until 2017 at the same time as taking on £340 million worth of responsibilities, such as the World Service and the roll-out of fast broadband.”
