RM leads fight against BBC 'digital curriculum'

RM, the listed educational software specialist, will lead a High Court action this week against the BBC, to challenge the corporation's plans to provide free material to schools under the "digital curriculum".

The judicial review will hear claims from RM and more than a dozen other software companies that the Government's award of the contract to the BBC followed improper procedures at the corporation. If successful, the groups may then take the Government to court.

The case, which starts today, goes to the heart of the private sector's complaints about the increasingly commercial activities of the BBC, which, it is said, uses licence payers' money to provide services that private businesses would otherwise have met.

Earlier this month, the Department for Culture gave the go-ahead to the BBC to develop a range of online educational products. The corporation will spend £150m over the next five years to produce the material but the BBC will give it away for free to schools.

"By approving the digital curriculum the Government is effectively sanctioning a single, state-controlled provider of digital learning content," RM said. Its shares have been hit hard by concerns over the loss of work on the digital curriculum.