The Treasury’s tentacles are everywhere and they poison much of what they touch with their micro-managed venom. Take the BBC for example.
The BBC has made clear that as the license fee is effectively going to be cut in real terms, further cuts in services and costs will have to take place. This has happened at the insistence of the Treasury who pushed Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell to be much tougher than she thought appropriate.
The BBC’s situation is made worse because the Treasury holds the right to cap the BBC’s level of borrowing so any cut in the license fee has to lead to a cut in services immediately without any ability to borrow when capital costs need to be covered.
As if that was not enough, the BBC is being forced to move large amounts of their production from London to Sale in a political move to shore up support in the Labour heartlands despite the cost of moving, estimated at some £600m, and the increased running costs that will result from adding a further major production site. It is not certain what will happen to the new BBC premises in West London that was designed to meet the corporation’s complete needs for years to come. The government is forcing much of the facilities onto a scrap heap when it had decades of useful life in it. Some of it may be rented out – much will be wasted.
These three points, all insisted on by the Treasury, in spite of experienced voices voicing concern from the BBC, external experts and even other government departments, have combined to ensure that the BBC’s output will lessen, the costs will increase and the license fee payers will get a worse deal than ever. We all have the meddlesome Chancellor to thank for that. He insists he always knows better than everyone else.
What new areas will he find to meddle in once he becomes Prime Minister? It is a frightening prospect.
The problem is not really a meddlesome chancellor – if your funding comes from the state, one way or the other, you have to accept that they will influence your actions as and when they choose. Everything may be very genteel and polite and no one is going to send heavies round to force you to do anything, but as Shakespeare said, he who has the cash calls the tune. The BBC can be grateful it doesn’t happen very often.
I am proud of the BBC and wish they had more money every year, but this cut in funds is not the tragedy you make it out to be. It will give the BBC the impetus to cut costs and improve processes (something it will no doubt claim it has already done, but you tend to be more imaginative that way when you don’t have money). The BBC is a huge employer and you can guarantee there is waste there – that is no criticism of the BBC, it’s just pragmatism. It’s not as if they have been living on the poverty line either, with enough money to run some very good programming and launch a number of new-technology projects. By the BBC’s own accounts, they have to save 10% (£2B out of a £20B budget) over 6 years – that’s hardly impossible. Nor should they seek to cover that supposed shortfall through borrowing – the government did increase their borrowing allowance but if you are advocating that their new borrowing allowance should have been increased enough to cover the £2B or anywhere near such a level, that is the kind of order-of-magnitude limit increase we would find irresponsible from a credit card company.
I agree the move to Sale is a waste and, as a Londoner, upsetting. That said, there is of course value in moving government and quasi-government institutions outside London. And if you are being moved to what BBC London employees might consider the middle of nowhere, it does not matter whether that is a Labour or Conservative area.
The only change I’d want to happen to the BBC is for their budget to double every year and for there to be a lot of rabbits and chocolate involved, but I imagine when the dust settles after this funding review, the BBC will find it has enough money to do everything it was going to do anyway.
Comment by James MacAonghus — 21 January, 2007 @ 10:05 am
The point I was trying to make was that the Chancellor over ruled another department – the one that in theory has responsibility here. He simply cannot leave well enough alone! He brought in more severe cut than Tessa Jowell thought was right, imposed the move to Sale at extra cost to the license payer without any belief it will lead to a better service and, possibly worst of all, forced the BBC to underwrite the cost of digital switch over when no one knows how much it might cost!
Brown seems to hate the BBC – for all of his recent praise for British institutions, he is pretty deft at knocking this one.
Comment by Timothy Barnes — 21 January, 2007 @ 11:57 pm