Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
60-65)
PETER HORROCKS,
RICHARD THOMAS
AND BEHROUZ
AFAGH
4 NOVEMBER 2009
Q60 Chairman: So if the pound
suddenly starts going up again you'll be doing very well.
Richard Thomas: We'll benefit,
absolutely.
Q61 Chairman: I'm not going to
speculate on that one. I'm still keeping my dollars, though.
Finally, your departmental resources accounts
referred to a number of planned efficiency savings. Have you got
any other savings in mind that are not mentioned in your 2008
report?
Richard Thomas: I think there
are some things, which will help out next year. In particular,
you'll have noticed in the press lots of stuff about controlling
pay within the BBC. We didn't have any bonuses last year—there'll
be an impact with that next year—and we had a pay settlement
lower than the previous year's. That will help us to stay within
our current funding as well. Also, some of our external contracts
are related to the retail prices index, so when RPI is low we
get a benefit. Obviously, when RPI has been high we've had to
find that money. The current financial situation, where it affects
RPI, will help us at least in the short term.
Q62 Chairman: This is the same
question that I asked the British Council. In the current national
and international economic climate and projections for the need
to reduce public spending, what are your priorities for the next
comprehensive spending review? Where would you envisage making
cuts if you had to?
Peter Horrocks: We are considering
that very closely at the moment. We are going through a programme
of engagement with all of our staff which we refer to as World
Service Choices, which is about taking our view on what priorities
there should be. We talked earlier about investing in multi-media
services and there are key parts of the world—Africa, India,
Pakistan—where being able to do that to maintain the BBC's
reach and reputation will be important to us. So we are focused
on things that we want to add.
In terms of looking for savings, there are some
opportunities that are available to us because of the new BBC
journalism headquarters currently being built in Portland Place,
where we are coming together with BBC News. The joining together
of operations should allow us to achieve some efficiencies. We
are also looking at other structural and distribution costs and
so on. Our initial focus is not to want to reduce any of our language
services.
We have not got the same clear-cut decision
that we were able to take with regard to the Arabic service by
saying, "Here are some countries we are providing services
for within Europe, but it is no longer necessary because they
have joined the EU." We are not in that position, so we are
looking for savings in other areas initially, but that will obviously
depend on the resources that are available and the discussions
that will no doubt happen over the next year or 18 months about
ongoing funding. We need to be ready to respond to prioritisation
so we are looking at which are the most important services and
which are the ones which, if we had to, we might reduce, but obviously
we do not want to be in that position unless it is absolutely
essential.
Q63 Chairman: You referred to
a new journalism centre. What is the prospect long term for Bush
House?
Peter Horrocks: We will be leaving
Bush House. The Bush House lease expires in 2012 and we are moving
to what we refer to as W1, which is the BBC's new journalism and
radio headquarters where the BBC's radio service is. All of the
domestic journalism, all of the global news and World Service
journalism will be in a single, effective building where the knowledge
that the language service teams from the World Service have got
will be blended together with all the domestic news operation
in what will be the biggest news centre in the world.
Q64 Chairman: So you won't make
any capital gain by moving out of Bush House.
Richard Thomas: We do not own
Bush House.
Q65 Chairman: Who does?
Richard Thomas: I think it is
Japanese owned.
Chairman: I can see another London hotel.
Gentlemen, thank you very much. It has been very valuable. We
will follow up with you the other areas on which you said you
would send us more information.
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