Crabbit

The Sunday Post has got hold of the results of the most recent BBC staff survey for the News and Current Affairs department in Scotland.  Only 18% of staff there think their bosses are "acting in the best interest of the BBC", compared with a figure of 59% across the whole corporation.  Only 16% in the department think their managers "help to deliver quality", compared with 46% as a BBC-wide figure.  Just over 10% believed BBC Scotland delivers value for money for licence fee payers.

Three Byfords - one book

Former BBC DDG Mark Byford is supplementing his pension with a book, coming in November, from Mainstream Publishing. It'll be one of the non-fiction specialists' last titles - the publishers are closing their office in Edinburgh at the end of this year.

Mark's been tracking the story of another Byford, whose name he spotted on the Vietnam war memorial in Washington. According to the blurb Mark's travelled more than 30,000 miles to complete the story of draftee Larry Byford, who died in the summer of 1967, aged 22.

There's another Byford in the book - Mark's father, Lawry (Sir Lawrence Byford to you and me - formerly HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary) - who was drafted in the Second World War. The book will be called A Name On A Wall: Two Men, Two Wars, Two Destinies - billed as "a gripping, true story which focuses on duty, heroism and fate." £16.99 is the forecast price...

No comparison

Never knowingly undersold. Here's the puff for Alan Yentob's session at the Sheffield DocFest, coming up in June.

Alan Yentob is an institution in his own right, with a career that spans six decades at the BBC. Having been Controller of BBC One and BBC Two, he is now a familiar face in front of the camera too thanks to his art documentary series Imagine. Join Alan in conversation to hear about his incomparable career.

Health matters

Ex-BBC COO and thwarted DG candidate Caroline Thomson has joined the NHS Trust Development Authority as a non-executive director. This may give her a chance to spar once again, at least indirectly, with Lord Patten, who, as well as being Chairman of BBC Trust, sits on the European Advisory Board of Bridgepoint, an investment group with major holdings in NHS out-sourcer Care UK and Tunstall, a tele-health-care operator. Or perhaps Russell Reynolds Associates, the headhunters that Lord Patten works for, found Caroline the job...

Office management

Peter Salmon, Director of North (and probably East, West and South-excluding-London) has blogged about the latest NAO review of the BBC's move to Salford Quays.

The papers have highlighted the scale of the relocation costs. No-one has made much of this para, in the changing budget of the project.

In February 2011, the BBC Trust approved an increase in the budgeted lifetime cost for the project in cash terms, from £876 million to £942 million. The increase was owing largely to the addition of £126 million following the BBC’s decision in 2010 to establish a head office unit and other central services at Salford, a £63 million increase for additional technology and a £28 million increase in estimated utility costs. The combined impact of adding these costs and updating other estimates increased the total gross lifetime cost by £238 million to £1,114 million (Figure 11 overleaf). The addition of these costs addressed a recommendation we made in our 2010 report for the BBC to ensure that all lifetime costs are included in business cases.

Peter was appointed Director, BBC North at the end of 2008. The budget line for the "head office unit" has now been reduced by £45m. But if you divide the remaining £81 million pounds over the twenty years from 2010 to 2030,  it still means it costs over £4m a year to run the Salford "head office" and central services.

With open eyes

When the recent BBC report into bullying came out, HR Director Lucy Adams claimed senior management failed to spot the problem because they were not close enough to rank and file staff.

She told Broadcast "“I was surprised because it’s not the BBC I recognise. I’m not witnessing this stuff. We haven’t been as visible and connected as we should have been. One of the key recommendations from the report is for senior managers – including those at the very top – to be much more visible, out there, connected and continuing to talk to our people."

The latest BBC organisation chart shows that, as of April, there are 595 staff in "BBC People" - I'm guessing three per cent of the work force. They were probably busy on redundancy cases....

Opportunity knocks

Talented women - apply for any and all BBC jobs now; the odds are massively in your favour. Lord Hall has appointed just one woman, Anne Bulford, to replace another woman, Zarin Patel, and moved Helen Boaden sideways. Since then we've seen promotions for Danny Cohen, Roger Mosey; an enhanced role for Peter Salmon; James Harding in at News, and blokes to run Newsnight and Today.

Details of James Purnell's management structure in Strategy and Digital (in a pdf straight out of Mad Men) show some 41 key posts, of which 13 are filled by women - and many of them seem to have "business management" in their titles.

The charts also reveal that former Comms boss and hardy swimmer Paul Mylrea is still with Auntie, contrary to previous reports, and in charge of something called the BBC Stakeholder Engagement Plan.

Wheels

And as Ian Katz is unveiled to the Newsnight staff as their new editor, Jamie Angus, helping out there as part-time Assistant Editor since the Rippon departure, is revealed as the next editor of Today on Radio 4.

Runner, cyclist and Crystal Palace-fan-living-near-Dorking, Jamie's currently a commissioner in BBC Global News. His BBC pedigree includes eight years on Today, rising to planning editor; daytime programmes editor on BBC World Service, and Editor of the World At One suite of programmes.

Isn't James Harding a cyclist ?

Ear ear

Some odds and ends from the lastest quarterly radio listening figures: Radio London 94.9's reach is down 22% year on year - Danny Baker left the weekday afternoon slot at the start of November last year.  For Paul Easton's take on the London market, click here.

BBC local radio in England is down 6% year on year. The Mark Forrest (All England-weekday-evening) Show launched in January, but Matt Deegan says that's not the problem ! Mark has 160,000 listeners - better than the three previous quarters.

Some BBC digital stations may have plateau-ed. 6Music, Radio 4 Extra, IXtra and The Asian Network could be where they are for a while.

Radio Cymru, which had to play old records at the start of the year in a dispute with the Welsh pop industry, is down to a new low of 119,000 listeners a week. BBC Radio nan Gaidheal is not rated on RAJAR.

Radio 2 and Radio 3 have had good quarters, led by their breakfast shows. Radio 2's turning into a monster, and commercial radio will now be yapping at the ankles of MPs for the imposition of the first radio ASBO. (Readers have pointed out that in the 70s and 80s, Radio One returned weekly audiences of up to 24 million - measured in the old way)

More men

It seems, in the end, Lord Hall couldn't make the money right for Peter Barron; The Spectator is convinced that Ian Katz, deputy editor of The Guardian, will be announced today as the next editor of Newsnight.

He's been quiet on BBC issues since the 28th April, but clearly BBC2 is his channel of choice...

Extraordinary that BBC2 Murdoch doc did not mention Guardian's role in exposing hacking
— ian katz (@iankatz1000) April 28, 2013

Kirtsy Wark ridiculous suggesting Tom Baldwin appointment by Ed Miliband analagous to Cameron hiring Coulson #newsnight
— ian katz (@iankatz1000) May 10, 2012

Ian's been with the Guardian for 23 years, and is married to Justine Roberts, co-founder of Mumsnet. They have four children and live not far from Highbury and Islington. Earlier this year it was reported that Dan Stevens was being lined up to play Ian's role in a dramatic reconstruction of the Assange/Wikileaks/Guardian love-hate relationship.