BBC spending £650 a day on taxi fares... and YOU pick up bill
BBC Scotland has shelled out nearly half a million pounds on taxis over the past two years.
New figures have revealed that the corporation is spending more than £650 a day on cabs for staff journeys and to ‘courier’ items.
Bosses at the broadcaster’s Glasgow HQ insisted that taxi costs were inevitable in order to provide coverage for television, radio and online.
Cabs were used to transport staff to locations and to get them to and from the Pacific Quay headquarters when working early or late in the evening.
Tapes and other goods ‘of a sensitive or urgent nature’ are also transported this way.
The total taxi bill for BBC Scotland, which receives £190million a year in licence fee funding, was £247,103 in 2015/16 and £228,100 in 2016/17.
The true cost will be much higher but bosses refused to reveal the fee for ferrying celebrity guests and programme contributors to and from the studios. They said it was exempt from disclosure under freedom of information laws because it was used for ‘journalism, art and literature’ purposes.
News and current affairs spent most with £149,000 being racked up over the two year period and £65,178 was paid out in cabs for BBC ‘talent’.
The radio arm of BBC Scotland shelled out a total of £82,600 on cabs while the sports department spent £27,827.
The entertainment division spent £12,495, while ‘online, knowledge and learning’ paid £13,160 and the ‘business, finance and technology’ team spent £14,755.
Chloe Westley, campaign manager at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: ‘When times are hard and public institutions are looking to make savings, TV taxpayers will wonder if spending such a huge amount of their money on taxis can really be good value.
‘BBC Scotland must do everything possible to make sure costs are kept down and come up with the most efficient method of transport.’
The bill for taxis in Scotland makes up a large chunk of the total spend on cabs across the UK by the corporation.
In 2014/15 the BBC as a whole spent £512,861 on taxis, in 2015/16 this fell to £411,317 but increased to £431,095 in the last year.
Shows made at the BBC’s base in Glasgow include nightly news programme Reporting Scotland – with presenters such as Jackie Bird, Cat Shearer and Sally Magnusson – and Sportscene, which is hosted by Jonathan Sutherland.
A BBC spokesman said: ‘The BBC broadcasts day and night to the country 365 days a year.
‘This requires essential staff to work in shifts including over the holidays and during anti-social hours.
‘There are strict guidelines in place for when taxi use is allowed which have led to an 8 per cent reduction year on year.’