More women, gays and ethnic minorities

WOMEN will make up half of the BBC’s on-air roles and half its workforce by 2020.

The Government yesterday backed the BBC’s diversity strategy, which includes targets for on- screen ethnic minority, gay and disabled actors.

Diversity will be part of the corporation’s mission statement for the first time, in a bid to make the BBC ‘the leading broadcaster promoting diversity’.

The BBC published its strategy last month. And Mr Whittingdale showed his support for this in his White paper, saying the BBC should ‘accurately and authentically represent and portray the lives of people across the UK’ while ‘raising awareness of the different cultures and the alternative viewpoints that make up its society’.

The new targets mean that 15 per cent of lead roles on television and radio will go to minority actors by 2020.

They include a target for 8 per cent of staff to be disabled and 10 per cent to be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.

The BBC will issue guidelines to commissioning editors to ensure that diversity is a priority in the creative process –and recruitment practices are set to be changed to ‘enhance diversity’, for example by monitoring the socio-economic background of BBC staff. Managers and recruiters are also to receive special training to reduce bias in the hiring process.