BBC orders huge pay review to tackle gender gap

THE BBC will launch a major salary review today amid continuing anger over its gender pay gap.

Tony Hall, the corporation’s director general, has appointed PwC, the accountancy giant, and Eversheds, the law firm, to examine the earnings of rank and file staff.

The BBC is expected to force some of its best-paid male stars to take pay cuts, and to award many women increases, in a bid to close the gap between the sexes. A source told the Daily Telegraph that ‘nothing is off the table’ and that BBC chiefs were eager to do something ‘pretty big and dramatic’.

Lord Hall will make the announcement today in a speech to staff.

The corporation was shamed earlier this summer, when it was forced to publish pay details for its 96 highest-paid stars – and it turned out that just a third of them were female. Licence fee payers and staff were shocked by the discrepancies between men and women who do similar jobs – sometimes sitting side by side.

For the Today programme on Radio 4, John Humphrys took home up to £650,000 last year. Yet his co-presenter Mishal Husain earned up to £250,000 and Sarah Montague’s salary did not even register on the list of those earning £150,000 or more.

Many of the BBC’s female presenters reacted furiously to the disclosures, and more than 40 well-known faces wrote to Lord Hall demanding immediate action.

The new ‘equal pay audit’ will take around six weeks and the results will be published later this year. The BBC will make its disclosures shortly before a new law comes into effect, forcing all organisations with more than 250 staff to publish details about their own gender pay gaps.

It has also recruited unnamed consultants to undertake a major review of the amount of money paid to top stars.