TAXI FOR BBC
Bosses cut free licences for OAPs but spend a fortune on unused cabs, trains and hotels
THE BBC has wasted more than £350,000 of licence payers’ cash on taxi, train and hotel bookings that were never used.
The Corporation has admitted that 5,455 train tickets, 600 hotel rooms and 1,631 taxi trips were cancelled over the last five years – and it was unable to claim refunds. Aborted train trips cost it £273,000, cancelled hotel bookings another £64,800 and abandoned taxi journeys £25,000. It means the BBC blew more than £6,000 a month on transport and accommodation nobody ended up using.
The news comes just months after the BBC scrapped free TV licences for most over-75s. More than three million more people will now be forced to pay £157.50 a year.
And it follows new Director General Tim Davie’s pledge to “keep a 1,631 TAXIS focus on cost reduction”. Andrew Allison from the Freedom Association blasted the wastage. He said: “The BBC shows little regard for licence fee payers’ money and these figures highlight that. For as long as it gets its funding from a compulsory telly tax, nothing will change.
“The only way forward is to scrap the licence fee and fund the Beeb through advertising and subscriptions.”
Each unused cab cost the BBC an average of £15. Cancelled train tickets cost around £50 each, while the hotel room bookings that were left empty cost an average of £100 each.
The BBC said it tries to keep cancelled bookings to a minimum and for flights that are not used its booking agent American Express automatically claims back the cash.
For taxis it said that all BBC fares have an initial 10-minute waiting time built into the charge, and this is normally enough to allow late-running passengers to get their cab.
On train fares it said many are claimed back, but cheaper “advance” tickets are not refundable.
A BBC spokesman said: “As a
24-hour international broadcaster, a significant amount of travel in
2019/20 was inevitable and the nature of our work means plans can often change at short notice. We have strict policies in place to ensure value for money, with over 95% of the money we control spent on content and services.”
But John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Spending hundreds of thousands of taxpayers’ cash on travel and hotels that weren’t even used is simply unacceptable.”