Tag: BBC

Mark Thompson, the BBC Director-General, used more than £2,000 of licence fee-payers’ money to fly his family home from holiday after the Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand row.

He cut short his family holiday to return to the UK as public anger grew over the lewd messages left by Brand and Ross on the answering machine of Andrew Sachs, the Fawlty Towers actor.

The cost of flying his family home – £2,236.90 to be exact – was met by the BBC with the approval of the chairman of the corporation’s audit committee.

Expenses claims made by the corporation’s board were published on Thursday in what Mr Thompson, who earns £ 816,000 a year, described as a “significant advance in openness at the BBC”, although full details of top stars’ salaries are to remain confidential.

Notes on the claim for flying Mr Thompson’s family home read: “The chairman of the audit committee of the executive board agreed that the expense of cutting a family holiday short would be met by the BBC in advance of the claim being made.

“The chairman of the BBC Trust was also informed.”

On the same day as his family’s flight back to the UK, October 30 last year, Mr Thompson also claimed £500 for hotel rooms in the towns of Siracusa and Ragusa in Sicily, where he is believed to have been spending his holiday, and a further £206 for what is described in the accompanying notes as “holiday cut short”.

In 2004 Mr Thompson put the £1,277.71 cost of chartering a private plane on expenses, again because he had to curtail a family holiday to deal with an “urgent staff issue” in London.

He claimed £99.99 last year for a bottle of Krug Grande Cuvee champagne – an 80th birthday gift for entertainer Bruce Forsyth – and spent £500 on a Christmas dinner for BBC executives in 2007.

Jana Bennett, director of BBC Vision, holding creative control of the corporation’s television output, claimed £500 for the theft of her handbag while on official business.

Notes on the claim said: “The BBC decided to pay half the cost of replacing the property and cash stolen.”

She also charged £35 to have her hair styled for a TV interview and nearly £190 for vaccinations ahead of a trip overseas.

On a trip to meet studio bosses in Los Angeles in May 2007, Ms Bennett claimed more than £1,300 for a stay at the luxury Raffles l’Ermitage hotel in Beverly Hills.

Her attendance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January 2008 cost more than £1,100 in hotel bills.

In May 2007 Ms Bennett spent more than £2,000 hosting a “talent” dinner with 22 attendees.

In July 2007 she claimed £1,500 for a leaving party for Jay Hunt, who is now BBC1 controller.

Ms Bennett also spent £400 on a cake to celebrate the end of the BBC’s series Any Dream Will Do, for a party for contestants’ families.

She also claimed various sums of around £30 a time for “talent gifts” such as bouquets of flowers.

Ms Bennett also spent £5 on a taxi “while carrying confidential documents” and £25 on a taxi when she “needed to make urgent phonecalls, carrying papers”.

The expenses list also showed that in May 2007 Ashley Highfield, who was the BBC’s director of future media and technology, spent more than £450 under the heading “external hospitality” while attending the Edinburgh festival.

He also claimed 54p in mileage for a meeting about the charity Comic Relief with Richard Curtis in September 2007.

Mr Highfield also spent more than £200 on a new Apple iPod in the same month “for testing with BBC services”.

In November 2007, chief operating officer Caroline Thomson spent £33.20 on hospitality for a “confidential discussion” before a meeting.

In September 2007 she claimed £135 in “celebratory drinks” for an awards bash. The same month saw her spend a total of more than £200 for a leaving do held at her house – as it was “cheaper than a restaurant”.

Jenny Abramsky, who was the BBC’s director of audio and music, spent nearly £550 in December 2007 on an internal Christmas lunch.

Mark Byford, the deputy director general, spent £60 in May 2007 on “discussing 2012”.

Mr Thompson spent £73.69 in September 2007 on a business lunch with Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell.

In October 2007 he splashed out more than £1,800 on flights for a business trip to New Delhi and in December that year he spent more than £600 on the office Christmas party.

Even charitable efforts clocked up significant expenses.

Tim Davie, director of audio and music, spent nearly £130 on a discussion on Sport Relief and also charged £407.25 for a “Children in Need business discussion”.

In September 2007 chief financial officer Zarin Patel claimed £700 for a “thank you” to Deloitte for work on a business plan.

Earlier, Mr Thompson announced that in future the BBC would release expenses claims made by the corporation’s 50 highest-earning executives and its leading decision makers every quarter.

Erik Huggers, the corporation’s director of future media and technology, claimed more than £2,500 for a three-day trip to Las Vegas in January which included a stay at the five-star Bellagio Hotel.

Leading stars at the BBC face substantial pay cuts due to the recession.

Those on large contracts include Jonathan Ross, said to be on £6 million a year; Graham Norton, who is believed to earn £ 2.5 million a year; Jeremy Paxman, reported to be paid £1 million, and Fiona Bruce, thought to earn £ 800,000 a year.

For some highly paid stars, the salary reduction could reportedly be as much as 40 per cent.

A hard-hitting MPs’ report also said recently that confidentiality agreements between the BBC and top radio stars were preventing full scrutiny of the way the corporation spent public money.

The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee said the BBC appeared to be paying some of its radio presenters more than twice what commercial stations paid theirs.

The BBC refused to give the National Audit Office (NAO), the public spending watchdog, a breakdown of presenters’ salaries for a selection of radio shows unless the NAO signed a non-disclosure agreement, the committee said.

Edward Leigh MP, the chairman of the committee, said it was “disgraceful” that the BBC could dictate what the NAO could inspect when public money was at stake.

Telegraph