BBC 'talent' pay kept secret but executives' costs revealed
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Details of BBC executives' expenses claims were revealed on the same day that the corporation said fees for individual stars will remain a secret.
But director general Mark Thompson said the BBC will go further in opening up the information it gives to the public, in what he described as a "major step change".
Last autumn it was decided that the BBC would be committed to regular routine publication of all the expenses incurred by members of the executive board.
Mr Thompson said: "In recent weeks, both the BBC Trust and the executive board have strongly encouraged us to look at whether we could - and should - go further in our practice of routine disclosure."
Mr Thompson said that in future the BBC intends a breakdown of pay, by name, not just for executive directors as now, but for two other groups - the top 50 earners in BBC management and the top decision-makers, "those with the greatest responsibility both for spending public money and for overseeing the BBC's services and operations".
He said the total number of managers involved is around 100 people beyond the executive board.
The BBC is extending its publication of expenses to everyone in this group of about 100.
Each quarter, it will publish full line-by-line expenses for each, as well as their hospitality and gift register.
But on the matter of talent, Mr Thompson said: "It has been our view that it does not make sense for the BBC to disclose individual talent fees.
"Why? We operate in an industry where confidentiality is the norm in which only one of our competitors is themselves subject to freedom of information.
"There's a real danger that talent would migrate to broadcasters where confidential information about how much they are paid will not be disclosed.
"But we recognise that the public have a legitimate interest in how much the BBC spends on talent, including top talent - and moreover that they have every right to hold us to account for actually delivering on that commitment to reduce the amount of the licence fee which goes on top talent.
"In future, we will disclose the total amount we spend on talent as a whole, and we will work on a plan to make our spend on talent more transparent so the public can monitor the direction of travel over time."
Mr Thompson said in the speech in Manchester: "Public expectations about openness, trustworthiness and every kind of value for money are becoming more trenchant, more insistent and more vocal than ever before."
The BBC will continue to publish a table of pay of the whole senior management population at the BBC by salary band in its annual report as well as a table of its wider staff costs.
Mr Thompson said: "Taken together, we believe that this package of disclosure represent a very significant advance in openness at the BBC and will place the BBC where it should be, which is at the frontier of disclosure practice in the public sector.
"It is what the public want - indeed what they demand - but I believe that in the end it helps rather than hinders the task of building a BBC which really respond to them and inspires them with great programmes and services."
Earlier this month, the corporation's top talent were called to a meeting where they were told to expect their pay to be slashed.
Jeremy Clarkson and Sir Terry Wogan were said to be among about 100 famous presenters at the gathering.
For some highly paid stars, the salary reduction could reportedly be as much as 40%.
A hard-hitting MPs' report also said recently that confidentiality agreements between the BBC and top radio stars were preventing full scrutiny of the way the corporation spent public money.
The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee said the BBC appeared to be paying some of its radio presenters more than twice what commercial stations paid theirs.
The BBC refused to give the National Audit Office (NAO), the public spending watchdog, a breakdown of presenters' salaries for a selection of radio shows unless the NAO signed a non-disclosure agreement, the committee said.
Mr Thompson emphasised that the entry level for a BBC presenter was not "£6 million a year".
He said: "In fact, the overwhelming majority (of) our talent who work with us to help inform and entertain the public are paid pretty modestly.
"We issue around 250,000 artists' contracts each year.
"The average value of a contract is less than £1,000.
"But it's true that we do employ a small number of people who earn a great deal."
The BBC has already slashed 7,200 jobs and 1,200 more are still to be cut.
The corporation plans to make savings of £1.9 billion over the current licence fee period.
Last October, sources said the BBC had banned staff from putting champagne claims on expenses.
Staff from the corporation put in claims for around £48,000-worth of bubbly in the previous year.
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Comments
As for keeping the salaries of the "talent" confidential, I can only presume that this is due to some of their remuneration dwarfing those of the bankers that we currently all love to hate, or to stop lots of infighting amongst their squabbling auto-cue reading brats.
Mr Thompson seems to be missing the point in that most other commercial broadcasters have to fight incredibly hard to raise the funds to pay their own talents. But they are the ones who put in the hard work. Unlike the BBC who have a government watchdog to do this job for them.
Would the BBC really struggle to fill the roles of the overpaid? I'm not convinced. Perhaps, Mr Thompson should request a meeting with Alex Ferguson about "talent" being bigger than the organisation. Apparently, Britain has very little talent.
It would apper that in just the same way that MPs tried to cover up the true extent of their tax payer abuses, so to the BBC appears to be doing the same at the licence payers' expense.
It's had to believe given what's happened at Westminster that the BBC head honchos are putting their heads in the sand and hoping that the public won't notice.
It's about time we were told all individual salaries, green room wining & dining, other corporate entertainment, hotels, cabs, restaurants, First Class / Business / Executive air & train fares etc. And, we also need to know who gets paid any kind of wage or even expenses for showing up to Red Nose or other BBC charity events. Increasingly I get the feeling that for a lot of "talking heads" on screen that the BBC has become a gravy train, and their over inflated salaries is probably just the start of the potential problem.
This lack of TOTAL transparency suggests that Mark Thomson is either deulusional or well on the way to becoming Shepherds Bush's answer to former speaker Michael Martin.
In other words, when told of the possible pay cut, Jeremy demanded a raise .....
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I would strongly suggest the BBC see sense and admit the truth now. If the sums paid are not seen by the public as excessive, the BBC will have shown themselves to be "transparent" and behaving fairly. But if we have to screw the information out of the Beeb in the way we have had to screw it out of greedy, self-serving MPs who were determined not to tell us how our money is spent, the BBC's already tarnished reputation will only become more tarnished. And in the end the BBC may find itself forced to answer the questions they are now refusing to answer and also face a big cut in the licence fee if we and the Government feel our money is being wasted on an arrogant, secretive organisation that seems to be taking advantage of us just as MPs have.
It's high time the BBC redeemed itself anyway. Get rid of that leftwing political bias - our Public broadcaster is supposed to be independent. Get rid of overpaid "stars", reduce execs' pay by at least half and preferably a lot more and stop heir arrogant disregard for our views, stop lines of business that would be better done by commercial companies and the Beeb does not need to do, remember it's remit as Public broadcaster, not desperate competitor to commercial as it seems to act now, show some awareness this country is in a very serious financial hole, accept a cut in the licence fee so that the excellent and unbiased and more focused Channel 4 can be saved.
I feel the BBC has long been shockingly complacent. It has seen the licence fee as a permanent gravy train. It continually gripes about wanting more but we licence payers are not at all convinced our money is being spent wisely. We need to see proof of how our money is spent.
That said, a word of praise for what the Beeb does well - its website, which is brilliant!
Being entirely financed by public poll tax, the BBC should be entirely transparent.
I particularly liked fallenpedant's comparison with Man Utd. It's clear that the likes of Jonathan Woss have been encouraged to think of themselves as super-Ronaldos who are above accountability.
There is a strong case for the BBC as exemplified by it website - right on rozr - and by the excellent World Service.
A slimmed down public current affairs/educational service, doing the sorts of programmes which the private sector would not find profitable, would be a start.
These people are not "employees' like the rest of us oiks :)