BBC tells studios to conduct diversity audits or miss out on work
THE BBC will ask all studios it works with to audit the ethnic diversity of their staff under new plans for ensuring “inclusion”.
Broadcast executives will be “bullish” in urging information-gathering on gender identity, sexuality, race, disability, and economic background by the more than 300 organisations in the corporation’s supply chain.
June Sarpong, the broadcaster, is seeking cultural change at the BBC with her first major policy move since taking on the newly created role of director of creative diversity last year.
A fundamental part of the shake-up at the corporation will involve outside suppliers measuring themselves against extensive BBC criteria in order to set “inclusion goals” which could be used to inform future hiring.
The broadcaster is trying to meet on and off-screen targets of 50 per cent representation for women, 15 per cent for ethnic minorities, and 8 per cent each for LGBT and disabled people.
Ms Sarpong said the changes would help “create the kind of world that we all want to see” by “making sure everyone understands the value of inclusion and why it matters”.
Lord Hall of Birkenhead, the director-general, said: “Diversity of thinking almost the most important thing.” Every year the publicly-funded side of the BBC publishes data in relation to diversity targets, but commercial wing BBC Studios will now ask for companies it pays in the UK and abroad to self-audit.
To assess organisations, the BBC is implementing a Belonging
Blueprint devised by US academics of the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, a diversity think tank.
Tim Davie, head of BBC Studios, said he would be “more bullish about production data”. The BBC commissions hundreds of organisations in its supply chain and these will be asked to help change workplace culture as part of Ms Sarpong’s Blueprint.