BBC PENSION HYPOCRITES

Fees snatched from over-75s will fund cosy retirements for Beeb staff

CASH from over-75s forced to buy TV licences will help top up generous BBC staff pensions.

Some former corporation bosses are entitled to six-figure handouts in retirement as members of a gold-plated payment scheme.

But the BBC faces a financial crisis with a black hole in its pension pot, its accounts reveal. It plans to spend £2billion plugging the gap by 2028 at a rate of around £200million a year, some of which will come from licence payments.

The news fuelled the furious backlash against the BBC’s plans to strip 3.7million households of their free TV licence from June next year.

The exemption will then be available only to over-75s on pension credit, a benefit currently claimed by 900,000 of the 1.5million eligible lowincome households.

Some have questioned whether the BBC’s pension crisis played a part in its decision-making. Corporation staff have long enjoyed enviable pension deals, with some entitled to six-figure sums because they are on a ‘final salary’ scheme.

Former BBC creative director Alan Yentob’s pension is at least £216,667 a year, according to a calculation by analysts in 2010. Ex-deputy director general Mark Byford gets at least £229,500 a year, according to analysts – although others say it is closer to £400,000.

The BBC’s final salary pension scheme was deemed unsustainable in 2006 and closed to new joiners in 2010. The broadcaster no longer publishes the entitlements of executive board members.

Pensions expert Baroness Altmann wrote in a letter to The Times yesterday: ‘One week our country salutes the magnificent D-Day veterans who fought for our freedom, the next it snatches away their much-valued benefit.’

A petition to save free TV for the over-75s, circulated by Age UK, had amassed more than 375,000 signatures by last night.

Another 170,000 signed a petition on the Parliament website calling for the licence fee to be axed altogether, and it will now be debated by MPs.

Furious pensioners posted pictures on social media of themselves ripping up their TV licences in a symbolic protest, and BBC staff were bombarded with messages from their own relatives.

One senior news boss said: ‘Virtually every person I have spoken to in the last 48 hours has had some sort of contact from aged family members.’

BBC insiders also grew angry with director general Lord Hall for agreeing to take on the bill for free licences for the over-75s, previously shouldered by the Department for Work and Pensions, as part of a deal with the Government in 2015. Prime Minister Theresa May yesterday reminded Lord Hall that he had praised the deal in the past, as she urged the BBC to ‘do the right thing’.

BBC stars also condemned the decision, although many blamed the Government.

Baroness Bakewell, the presenter and former ‘tsar’ for the elderly, said responsibility for the over-75s concession was ‘a government decision imposed on the BBC’ and ‘pensioners who do not claim tax credits but are still needful should get a free licence’.

Former Newsnight host Jeremy Paxman said: ‘Benefits are the business of government, not broadcasters. Like many of the BBC’s friends, I keep wondering how the organisation can keep shooting itself in the foot. It must look like a chunk of Emmental by now.’

And Sir Michael Palin said: ‘I know the BBC did a pretty bad deal [on licence fee negotiations]… I just wish it wasn’t at the expense of the people who now have to fork out for their licence.’

BBC bosses said this week it was ‘ untenable’ to keep free licences for all over-75s without cutting its budget by a fifth and doing away with services.

The BBC said last night it ‘is no different to many organisations in having a deficit in its pension scheme caused by external market factors’.

A spokesman added: ‘We closed the scheme to new joiners in 2010, are required by law to make payments to close the deficit and by managing this over the next decade we’re minimising the impact on our services. The reality is that the Government decided to stop funding free licences for all over75s and the BBC has made the fairest decision on the future policy.’