Examination of Witnesses (Questions 278
- 279)
TUESDAY 6 JULY 2004
BBC SCOTLAND
Chairman: Gentlemen, I would like to
welcome you to this hearing of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee.
I would first of all very much like to thank Glasgow City Council
for making this very handsome room in the beautiful City Chambers
available to us for this sitting. As it happens this is the second
time I have chaired a select committee hearing in this building
because the National Heritage Committee which I chaired also held
a hearing here, so this is becoming something of an intermittent
tradition for our select committee to hold hearings here in Glasgow.
This, as you know, is one of a number of hearings, most of the
rest of which are being held at Westminster, in our inquiry into
the BBC Charter Review. I will ask Rosemary McKenna to open the
questioning.
Q278 Rosemary McKenna: It is quite
clear under the current Charter exactly what the BBC's responsibilities
are to the nations and regions of the UK. However, what we would
like to know is just how autonomous BBC Scotland is.
Mr MacQuarrie: If we take, for
example, scheduling of BBC1 and BBC2, we are in the scheduling
of programming very much autonomous but we would obviously look
to fixed points, for example, the Six O'Clock News and
the Ten O'Clock News, in considering the needs of the audience
and the need for the BBC to offer a shared experience across the
UK so that when we schedule sport, for example, or when we are
scheduling factual output, we are able to take into consideration
the needs of the audience in Scotland at a particular time and
schedule accordingly. In that sphere of activity we have absolute
autonomy as far as the scheduling is concerned but it is a discretion
that we use with consideration and also in co-ordination with
colleagues in the network in terms of making sure that we all
know what we are scheduling at a particular point in time and
that we have the marketing and all the listings and relevant information
for the audience.
Sir Robert Smith: Perhaps I could
amplify that by talking about the governance. We have the Broadcasting
Council for Scotland which is essentially advisory. The governors
are the ultimate decision-makers in London. I am a governor as
well as Chair of the Advisory Committee that is the Broadcasting
Council for Scotland. This year, with the issue of the Scottish
Six, as it was called, the Six O'Clock News hour between
six and seven, which changes from international and national to
purely Scottish news, we looked at whether that should be edited
from Glasgow. We had about 20 public meetings up and down Scotland
which members of the Broadcasting Council attended. The Broadcasting
Council laid down a remit for independent investigation. When
we got all the evidence back the management in Glasgow came to
us with the proposition that we should not change. It was a very
well argued thing. We agreed with that and we had no recourse
back to the governors in London. We felt that the governors, if
you like, of the advisory people in Scotland were content with
what the management in Scotland were saying about the Scottish
Six and we decided to go ahead on that basis and we did not have
to go for approval to London.
Q279 Rosemary McKenna: This is your
opportunity to see if you would like further autonomy or if under
charter renewal there is anything that you would like written
into the charter which would strengthen your autonomy?
Sir Robert Smith: I would not
want any more direct power like that because I think there is
enough opportunity there. Under the changes that the governors
are bringing into governance generally, where they are creating
more blue water between management and themselves, we are setting
up a system in London where we will be able to commission independent
research and we will be able to use internal people to do that.
We would like to see Broadcasting Councils have more of an opportunity
to use independent research locally as we did with the news and
current affairs review this year.
Mr MacQuarrie: We are looking
at diversity this year in its fullest sense in terms of what we
are doing across our services from social inclusion through to
geographic diversity in that the Broadcasting Council will lead
a major project with independently commissioned research on diversity
in much the same fashion that we did the news review last year
as a sample of 1,160 plus the public meetings.
Sir Robert Smith: Broadcasting
House are going to be talking about this and if the Broadcasting
Council feel frustrated we will go to the governors and say, "Look:
we need more authority here". If we feel really strongly
about something I believe that the governors have to listen.
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