World Service editor claims that white staff are paid more

A BBC editor is suing the corporation, claiming it pays ethnic minority staff as much as £20,000 less than white managers, it was reported yesterday.

Saleem Patka, a senior manager at the World Service languages unit in London, is suing for racial discrimination, claiming to have figures that staff in his unit were paid, on average, £7,400 less than network news staff. He also alleges that at his level of work, the difference worked out at £18,700 a year.

The BBC is contesting the claims, which have centred around a two-year legal battle. However, they first emerged yesterday in the Evening Standard, which had extracts of a preliminary hearing in front of an employment judge. Outlining the case, the judge said: “The claimant’s case … is that on the grounds of race the salary he was offered at the three managerial roles that he held since 2010 was at a lower level than that which was offered, or would have been offered, to white managers in network news at the same level doing the same work as him.”

Mr Patka declined to comment to the newspaper, but reportedly has pursued an internal grievance. He is a former night editor of the Today programme, and editor of BBC Worldwide’s main news programme World Briefing.

A BBC spokesman said: “We are defending this claim.”