Examination of Witnesses (Questions 240
- 259)
WEDNESDAY 6 JUNE 2007
MR SHAUN
WOODWARD AND
MR ANDREW
RAMSAY
Q240 Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall:
Leaving all the mistakes exactly as they were but changing the
individuals and the structure, who would have resigned?
Mr Woodward: I do not think people should just
resign, just as a way of getting through the day; you resign because
you take responsibility for something. If you have clear lines
of responsibility then it is possible to say who should resign.
If it is a matter of editorial judgment then, very, very clearly,
that is a different individual from somebody who may be taking
responsibility for the overall performance of the BBC or the failure
of performance within the BBC. It was the lack of clarity between
those two positions which created part of the crisis following
Hutton.
Q241 Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall:
I understand that is your view, but if I put a slightly different
question to you perhaps what I am trying to get at might become
clear. In effect, who line-manages the Director General of the
BBC, to whom is he responsible?
Mr Woodward: Ultimately, the Director General
of the BBC is responsible to the Chairman of the Trust. As Michael
Grade said, where does the buck stop? It stops there.
Q242 Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall:
Therefore, to put it bluntly, the Chairman of the Trust is his
employer?
Mr Woodward: As Michael Grade made perfectly
clear, he had been involved in the discussions, that is where
the buck stops; maybe Andrew can help, because, again, I was not
involved in these negotiations. It may be helpful, My Lord Chairman,
for the benefit of the Committee, also to have the reflection
of somebody who has actually been through the three-year process,
as well as a Minister who has been there for only 13 months.
Mr Ramsay: I was just going to draw attention
to the Charter, actually, which I think is written in clearer
language now and it is very clear about what the general duties
of the Trust are and what their specific functions are, and I
think that sets it out quite well. I would just add, in the Hutton
example, I hope we have created a structure which would prevent
what happened happening, because it separates the action within
the Executive which caused the initial problem from the consideration
of a Trust of the consequences of that action through the complaints
processes, etc., etc. I think the system actually would assist
in preventing the problem which occurred then as we have it now.
Q243 Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick:
With respect, Mr Ramsay, a three-year process over which there
was much hammering, as I am very well aware, has not left us with
really great clarity on this issue at all, and the members of
this Committee are struggling to understand the differences between
the operations of the Trust and the Chairman of the Management
Board and the Management Board. Can you also clarify, between
yourself and the Minister, one further point, which is that there
are three non-executive directors who are members of the Executive
Board, and the Executive Board, as the Minister stated, has final
editorial responsibility, and the Trust Board represents the BBC
to the public, because it represents the views to the licence
fee payers. Do the three non-executive directors take editorial
responsibility in line with the Executive directors, and therefore
they have ownership and control of programme-making?
Mr Ramsay: The purpose of the non-execs, and
I think there are five but I may be wrong there, is to act as
critical friends for the Executives. The reason we placed them
there, in the new set-up, was that under the old arrangements
the Chairman of the Governors and the Director General related
very closely, there was someone at non-exec level for the Director
General to turn to in cases of difficulty. By separating out the
Trust oversight role and the Executive operational role, we took
the possibility of that close relationship out of the system.
Therefore we thought that for the Executive operation we should
provide non-execs who would give a critical friend role, not a
shareholder role, or anything like that, not linked to the licence
fee payer like the Trust, who would support that Executive Board
in whatever it did. They are part of that group now and have the
responsibilities of that group, having been appointed to that
group.
Q244 Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick:
So equally accountable for editorial decisions?
Mr Ramsay: No; the overall operation, they are
part of the same organisation, I think you were saying, the BBC.
Q245 Lord Maxton:
I have to say, the buck stops with the Chairman of the Trust,
but the total editorial control is in the hands of the Management
Board, and they have total editorial control, and the BBC, after
all, is a producer of programmes, very largely; so how does the
buck then move on to the Chairman of the Trust, if some programme
is produced which very largely is shown to be incorrect? An example:
that recent Panorama programme, a scare-mongering, unscientific
programme on Wi-Fi and lap-tops; is the Chairman ultimately responsible
for that, the Trust?
Mr Woodward: The Chairman of the Executive Management
Board is responsible for programme content. As to whether or not
the Chairman of the BBC decides to support that, or not support
it, it is probably true he is not going to veto it, that is a
matter for the relationship between the two people, but ultimately
the responsibility for those running the Management Board has
to be with the Chairman of the Trust.
Q246 Lord Maxton:
He is a regulator and not a broadcaster?
Mr Woodward: The Chairman of the Trust is not
a programme-maker.
Q247 Lord Maxton:
No, but where the buck stops he must be responsible for the programmes
which are produced?
Mr Woodward: I regret the Committee finds it
so difficult to understand the context within which we are making
these observations. I do believe it is set out quite clearly in
the Charter and Agreement which we have got here, but, at the
end of the day, I think the responsibility is clear, but also
it is perfectly clear that this Committee has decided that it
is not clear.
Q248 Chairman:
No; that is unfair. I think you are getting too defensive. What
we are trying to do is actually cast some light on this and understand
it, and, if you do not mind me saying so, this is also vaguely
insulting as well, because this Committee has spent a lot of time,
in this incarnation and the previous one, trying to understand
what is happening with the BBC and I do not think it does any
good to anyone if ministers come and say, "Well, actually,
you don't understand it; you're actually completely stupid on
this." I think that is an offensive way of putting it.
Mr Woodward: With respect, My Lord Chairman,
I did not say that.
Chairman: Okay; well, let us move on. Let us
go to Lady Thornton.
Q249 Baroness Thornton:
I do not think this is nit-picking but it is sort of following
on from the discussion we have had and it is about the terms which
actually are used in the Charter, which is that the Chairman is
an honorary title, because in lots of courts of life `honorary
title' means something quite different from what you have been
describing, which is that the buck stops there, that he or she,
in this case he, is responsible for the BBC and responsible to
represent the BBC to the Government, etc. That does not square
with what the wording is and I just wondered who got those wrong,
those words are wrong, or what does it mean, what was the intention
that expresses?
Mr Woodward: I am not sure whether the arcane
legalese that we have within our constitutional system which gives
rise to the expression `honorary chairman' is actually open or
not. I have to say, I find it quite bewildering. That being said,
it does seem to me that, again, when you put the same question
to Michael Grade, whilst, on the one hand, he also acknowledged
the arcane legalese which lies behind these sorts of phrases,
nonetheless, he was perfectly clear about what the role of the
Chairman of the BBC actually is, which is, it is to provide leadership
for the organisation. Andrew, you might be able to comment.
Mr Ramsay: It is a purely technical point. Michael
Lyons is appointed as Chairman of the Trust; the Director General,
although non-executive, is Chairman of the Executive Board. The
BBC is a body corporate but the two bits of it never meet together.
Because of that, a reference to the Chairman of the BBC overseeing
the two bodies together is not appropriate, in the technical sense;
therefore it is referred to as an Honorary Chairman of the BBC.
It is a purely technical point. It is because the two bits of
the BBC, in order to maintain the separation, do not meet to take
decisions together.
Q250 Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall:
Just on that point, obviously I did not make myself very clear,
but this is precisely the area of anxiety in relation to where
the buck stops. If these two bodies never meet together, and therefore
the decisions which one takes are not impacted upon nor influenced
by anything which the other does, then how is the person chairing
one to be responsible for the decisions of the other?
Mr Ramsay: Essentially what the Trust does,
if I can set it at its broadest, is set the framework within which
the BBC Executive operates and in doing that its primary role
is representing the interests of the licence fee payers. It has
a number of specific functions, which are set out, to do with
strategy, to do with service licences, and so forth; so the Executive
presents things, the Trust decides and gives its decision to the
Trust which then operates within that framework. The reason why
it is necessary to have, even with this division, which is to
try and make the oversight and the operation separate, a final
arbiter in case of trouble, dispute, is that in any organisation
you must have that. The BBC remains one BBC, there are not two
BBCs, it is not as if there is an external regulator and the BBC;
it is two parts of a single organisation. At the end of the day,
if something goes wrong someone has to take the final decision
and that is the Trust; but the primary role of the Trust is set
out, is to provide the framework and that is how the daily business
is done.
Q251 Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury:
Does the Director General either sit on or is he not present at
the Trust Board's meetings?
Mr Ramsay: He may be present to present things
but he is not part of the decision-making apparatus at all; he
would be there only to present things.
Q252 Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury:
He is not always present?
Mr Ramsay: No; absolutely not. He is not a member
of it; absolutely not.
Q253 Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury:
What is clear is that the Trust and the Board of Governors are
different bodies. Do you find that there are different kinds of
people, types of people, applying for chairmanship of the Trust
than had applied for chairmanship of the Board of Governors?
Mr Ramsay: It is very hard to make a generalisation.
I think some very similar people applied.
Mr Woodward: They were similar people. There
are some familiar names which people who might have gone through
this process before would have recognised.
Q254 Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury:
Did you not want a different type of person?
Mr Ramsay: We set out what we wanted in the
role spec and then people applied, and you see what arrives and
whom you have to consider. Clearly, we had a different role spec
and it is quite likely that a different sort of person would fulfil
that from the role spec for the Chairman of the Governors; but
people make up their own minds as to whether they are capable
of fulfilling a particular spec or not and apply accordingly,
and we see what we get.
Q255 Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury:
Coming back to what My Lord Chairman said earlier, which is that
we have ended up with someone who does not have a great deal of
experience in the broadcasting world and, if I could pick up on
what the Minister said to me earlier, my information was not purely
from reading the newspapers. As you know, I also have a background
in broadcasting and there were a number of people who decided
that they did not want to apply for the job, having previously
suggested that they might, David Puttnam being an example. Do
you think this is because the job, as described by Michael Grade,
is fundamentally uninteresting to those people?
Mr Woodward: No. I do not think that is true.
I think it is different. Whether or not it is uninteresting, again,
there are people who did think about applying for the job who
did not apply, there are people who did apply for the job last
time round who applied for it again this time round. There is
no question that the job is different from the job which Michael
Grade was doing, and there are some for whom, I imagine, that
may make it less interesting. There are others, who will find,
because there is greater clarity about what the role is, there
is security in that, who will prefer to do it; but undoubtedly
the job has changed.
Q256 Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury:
Why do you think so many eminent names in the broadcasting world
thought about it and then decided this was not for them?
Mr Woodward: I think, when any job appears,
a lot of people think about it, but it does not necessarily follow
through that people decide to apply for it.
Q257 Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury:
This does not concern you?
Mr Woodward: I think, in a sense, what it comes
down to is, if you look at the short list which was drawn up,
do we think that actually we have suffered, in any shape or form,
a loss of calibre or a loss of quality of candidates, I think
it would be quite wrong to conclude that.
Q258 Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury:
It took quite a long time though?
Mr Woodward: I have to say, I think we have
emerged with an outstanding individual to take the job of Chairman
of the BBC for the next few years.
Q259 Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury:
You are not able to tell us who else was on the short list, I
imagine?
Mr Woodward: I think we recognise that people
want confidentiality about these things; but insofar as any information
can be made available publicly, or it is appropriate in confidence
to disclose it to this Committee, certainly we will look at it
and we will make sure that whatever can be made available has
been made available to the Committee. We are not, in any way,
trying to conceal anything from the Committee. I am just trying
to ensure that the integrity of the appointments process is preserved,
even if that means I get a bit of challenge myself this morning.
Mr Ramsay: There are two reasons why we do not
reveal names. One is, people have an expectation, when they go
into the process as it is at the moment, that, so far as we possibly
can, their names will be kept out of the public presses; we do
not always succeed but most of the time we do. Secondly, there
are data protection issues these days, a legal basis for not disclosing,
so it is both a fairness and a legal point. I am afraid, that
was what was at the back of what I was talking about in not answering
earlier on.
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