Top BBC execs claim over £1k expenses a month
Wednesday, 24 June 2009 12:00 AM
The BBC is to publish details of salaries and expenses of its top 100 executives today amid accusations it is wasting millions of pounds of public funds.
The corporation, which spent £47,800 on champagne in the year to last April, had been expected to publish the details within days but this appears to have been brought forward after The Times published details of their plans.
The BBC had already revealed its top ten executives claimed £145,000 on expenses last year, but these claims have never been itemised before.
License fee payers are likely to question why executives spent more than £1,000 a month on expenses which are alleged to have included five-star hotels and attending Wimbledon.
In a speech today in Manchester, Mark Thompson, the BBC director general, announced that a hospitality and gifts register will also be published.
But the BBC is keeping its spending on "talent" firmly under wraps and it is thought some of the more sensitive information about expenses will be redacted.
In the past, the BBC has repeatedly used freedom of information exemptions to block enquiries about staff pay and expenses, refusing even to tell the National Audit Office (NAO) how much presenters were paid.
Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Vince Cable said: "It's just not good enough."
Citing the recent publication of MP's expense details he said, "I do not see why the same discipline should not apply to those who are highly paid at the taxpayers' expense at the BBC".
Mr Thompson said: "I firmly believe that these changes will help us maintain trust with the licence fee payer and will ensure the BBC continues to lead the way in transparency and disclosure."
The BBC has been shaken in recent months by the proposed 'top-slicing' of the license fee in Lord Carter's Digital Britain report and the controversy surrounding Jonathon Ross and Russell Brand's phone call to Andrew Sachs.
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