BBC hands ‘ hardship’ cash to tax row workers

‘I don’t take any pride in that’

HARDSHIP payments have been made to BBC presenters facing huge tax bills because of a working arrangement imposed on them, MPs were told yesterday.

Some workers are being chased for the money after operating through ‘personal service companies’ so they could be treated as freelancers and save the broadcaster millions.

Appearing before a Commons committee, deputy director-general Anne Bulford said loans and advances had been given to a number of individuals with temporary financial difficulties.

‘We are talking about comparatively modest sums of money in the overall scheme of things but important to the individuals,’ she said.

‘We are talking about 15 individuals. We think it is the right thing to do.’

The disclosure came just weeks after BBC workers told MPs how some feared homelessness and others had considered taking their own lives amid mounting concerns they would be saddled with debt.

Workers said they had set up tax efficient companies, at the request of the BBC, which deprived them of employment rights such as holiday, sick pay and pension contributions.

They included Radio 4 Front Row presenter Kirsty Lang, 55, who said the broadcaster had hung her ‘out to dry’. Despite being at the BBC for 33 years, she was not entitled to sick pay when she was diagnosed with cancer because she worked through a PSC.

Yesterday director general Lord Hall, also appearing before the Public Accounts Committee, said he sympathised with those being chased for back tax and blamed changes by HMRC. ‘This has caused a good deal of confusion for individuals,’ he said.

‘It has caused a great deal of anger among the people who are our frontline presenters. In some cases it has caused some hardship.

‘If there are cases of hardship we have made it clear we want to deal with those as a priority. My sympathies are to the people on the raw end of this. I don’t like the fact a number of our presenters are going through this. I don’t take any pride in that. It’s not how I want to run things.’

Miss Bulford was not able to rule out the prospect that the BBC would end up paying the back taxes of some of the workers, meaning a hefty bill for licence fee-payers.

MPs also pressed both executives on the BBC’s gender pay gap. Lord Hall said the pay of some male presenters had been ‘taken down’ and reforms were being brought forward.

He also insisted he was ‘not complacent’ over the Corporation’s commercial activities, which are flatlining as Netflix and Amazon boom online.

THE BBC bosses were also grilled over bonuses for TV Licensing managers following a Mail investigation.

Yesterday we told how area managers of Capita, paid £59million a year to collect the fee, were paid thousands to gather ‘prosecution statements’ which forced people to go to court.

But cases were then thrown out because of evidence collected on the doorstep. Miss Bulford admitted an ‘old scheme’ had encouraged the use of prosecution statements.