BBC deputy’s pay hits £435k after 10pc hike

BBC dePuTy director Anne Bulford once denied to a parliamentary committee the Corporation was a ‘cosy club’ where senior figures hand each other huge pay deals. So staff are somewhat bemused that she has quietly trousered a 10per cent annual pay rise from £395,000 to £435,000. This puts her within touching distance of BBC chief Lord Hall, who’s on £450,000 a year.

According to official documents, Bulford secured the salary hike in November — five months after she was elevated to the deputy post.

Bulford is a long-standing friend of Tony Hall and was director of finance and business affairs at the Royal Opera House when he was its chief executive.

There was controversy when she joined the BBC in 2013 as she was given the role of managing director of finance and operations without the job being advertised.

The BBC said that her pay rise is justified because of her promotion.

‘The increase reflects Anne’s significant extra responsibilities in being promoted from managing director, finance and operations to deputy director-general,’ says a spokesman.

‘Through Anne’s work, the BBC has already saved hundreds of millions of pounds and the BBC has been recognised as being among the most efficient organisations in the public sector or regulated industries.’

Another top earner is BBC ‘superwoman’ Charlotte Moore, who was paid £325,000 last year — more than twice the Prime Minister’s salary. Theresa May, earns £149,440 a year.

The 48-year-old — who is in charge of all of the BBC’s TV and iPlayer content — was handed a £30,000 pay increase when she was promoted to the job in January 2016.

She was previously controller of BBC1, where her £295,000-a-year salary already made her one of the highest-paid executives in television.

It is not the first time Moore has stirred controversy. Last year, she was forced to quit her husband’s TV company over an ‘astonishing’ conflict of interests.

Moore spent the past nine years as company secretary of Perry Images, owned by her husband Johann Perry. The firm had profited handsomely from the BBC commissions, including some which Moore commissioned.