APPENDIX 23
Memorandum submitted by the Consumers'
Association
I have pleasure in enclosing a copy of Consumers'
Association's response[88]
to the Report of the Independent Review Panel into the Future
Funding of the BBC. This forms our evidence to the Culture Media
and Sports Committee's own inquiry into the Funding of the BBC.
In our response we state that a proper assessment
of the BBC's funding cannot be made without a wider debate on
its public service remit and governance.
We also reached the following conclusions:
— The BBC should be given enough funding
to ensure that it maintains a central role in public service broadcasting
provision;
— The primary objective of the transparency
measures should be to clearly show where money has been spent;
— Established services should be developed
to their full potential before moving to new services;
— It should be made clear whether the
need for new services stem from the change to digital, a more
competitive market or general social change;
— Proposals for new services should
be costed, assessed against agreed criteria and publicly consulted
on in a way which will effectively gauge public opinion;
— Any changes to the licence fee should
be independently tested against a number of principles;
— Any proposals for changes to the
structure of the BBC should be based on an assessment of the long-term
benefit rather than short-term income gains. In particular, the
effects on the nature and quality of programmes produced should
be gauged; and
— The concessionary licence scheme
should be looked at again to make it fairer.
November 1999
88 Not printed. Back
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