BBC pay is too high

Listeners to Radio Four’s Today programme yesterday found themselves caught up in an internal row over the BBC’S salary levels. Carrie Gracie, the broadcaster’s China Editor, had resigned in protest at being paid less than male colleagues whom she considered were doing the same job.

Bizarrely, Ms Gracie was presenting the programme, so she had not actually quit the BBC, even though she was accusing her employers of breaking equal pay laws that have applied for more than 40 years. But is running the China bureau of the BBC the same as being in charge of, say, the Washington office where the output is almost certainly higher?

There are still issues around overall pay equality as is apparent from the salaries currently being reported to the Government as part of its new “transparency” requirements. But what does this regulatory exercise tell us? One of the worst “offenders” is easyjet, which has a 51.7 per cent pay gap. But this is almost entirely accounted for by the fact that most of the airline’s pilots are men whereas most women are in more low-paid cabin crew roles.

Ms Gracie’s dudgeon over the way she had been treated was used to make wider points about gender pay imbalance in society as a whole. But what this episode has demonstrated is that pay inside the BBC is out of control. They even offered her a £45,000 rise to try to placate her.

Ms Gracie said “salaries at the top are unacceptably high both for presenters and stars of various kinds and also for managers”. Indeed so. If her stand leads to a fall in the BBC’S salary bill, it will be worth it.