BBC to blow £1m on asking its staff how it can get better

THE BBC is under fire over plans to spend up to £1million of taxpayers’ cash setting up staff surveys.

In a move likely to anger the 3.7million over-75s stripped of their free licence fees, the corporation has earmarked the sum to get feedback on ‘culture and engagement’.

The price of the software for ‘staff surveys, exit surveys and regular pulse surveys’ could pay for 6,300 licence fees at a cost of £157.50 each. The broadcaster billed the move as a way to ‘deliver one of the key objectives of making the BBC an even greater place to work’.

Last night MPs and campaigners branded the contract a ‘colossal waste of money’ and urged the BBC to ‘sort its priorities out’.

The plans were posted on the corporation’s sourcing website days before Tim Davie took over as the new director-general.

The procurement document read: ‘The BBC is looking to purchase a staff survey and engagement software-based platform solution.’ It added that collecting such data is ‘critical in ensuring we can respond to the areas people are telling us we need to improve on’.

The contract is for three years - with the possibility of extending to five. The £1million fee would be spread across the five years. It comes as Downing Street piled pressure on Mr Davie to ‘look again’ at the decision to axe universal free TV licences for the over-75s. The BBC paid for 3.7million older people to receive free licences from 2015 when a new financing deal was brokered by the Government. But the corporation claims it can no longer afford the £750million annual cost. As of August 1, most over-75s will have to pay, though those receiving pension credit are exempt.

Conservative MP Peter Bone branded the proposed £1million contract as a ‘colossal waste of money’. Tom Hunt, MP for Ipswich, said: ‘I don’t know how surveys can cost that much money. The BBC doesn’t seem to be making every effort to minimise cost.’

Dennis Reed, director of campaign group Silver Voices, said the news would only anger over-75s ‘ militant’ about fighting the licence fee. He said: ‘The BBC needs to sort its priorities out.’

A BBC spokesman said: ‘Like most large organisations we use staff surveys to gain valuable feedback on our performance and respond to the areas people are telling us we need to improve on.’