What a farce! BBC’s £1m bill to move staff back to their old office
AS far as travel costs go, £1million for a five-mile trip is steep by anyone’s standards.
But that is what the BBC is said to be forking out to move production staff from central to West London – two years after it moved them the other way.
In a farcical turn of events, programme makers are being shifted from the £1billion New Broadcasting House, near Oxford Street, back to their old home in Shepherd’s Bush, not far from the former TV Centre at White City.
It is an expensive U-turn that would not seem out of place in the BBC-set comedy series W1A, which stars Hugh Bonneville as a hapless bureaucrat and pokes fun at the corporation’s inefficiency and political correctness.
The plan, announced to staff on Thursday, has already been branded ‘frustrating’ and ‘straight out of W1A’, as well as being put down to poor planning.
The move – part of a scheme to restructure the corporation by having its production arm run separately as BBC Studios – was unveiled by Mark Linsey, head of the new venture.
Bosses are said to believe it would be wrong for licence fee payers to cover the cost of the new organisation having a prime central London location, which would be seen as an unfair advantage over the independent production companies it is now meant to be competing with over contracts to make shows.
However, this has raised eyebrows because it is still the licence fee that will cover the costs of the move itself and for the base in Shepherd’s Bush. Space in New Broadcasting House has also been cited as a reason behind the planned move of up to 1,000 staff.
A source said: ‘Because BBC Studios has got to compete with inde-
‘It all comes down to poor planning’
pendents, the BBC is having to cut down the perceived subsidies to them [BBC Studios].
‘For them to be seen being housed in very expensive accommodation by Oxford Circus at the licence fee payers’ expense will be seen as being anti- competitive, so all the production staff are going to be moved back to the cheaper premises in Shepherd’s Bush – because there is some accommodation there that belongs to the BBC.
‘Having transferred them all two years ago at great expense and great upheaval, all the production staff were told they are all going back again. It’s straight out of W1A.’
Gerry Morrissey, general secretary of BECTU, the union that represents TV production staff, said: ‘It all comes down to the p***-poor planning that went into New Broadcasting House.
‘They haven’t got enough space to keep their programme people in there. It should be the office people, dealing with policy and not programmes, who should be moved out of New Broadcasting House, which should be the centre of programme making. With the numbers affected the cost is going to go over a million quid.’
The BBC said some of the staff involved in BBC Studios have always been based in West London. It has also said that its reduced presence in West London in recent years has exceeded savings targets by £185million.
A BBC spokesman said: ‘We’ll be saving £75million a year through our property plan and we still have offices that include some of the BBC Studios team in West London. This is a normal business consolidation that helps deliver savings and it will also allow for the Government-funded expansion of World Service, which is based in Broadcasting House.’