The BBC will argue that it was largely obliged to do the deals, but there are clearly some cases where the NAO thinks differently, for example in payments in lieu of notice during the past three years. "We found that 14 senior managers had been paid more than their entitlement, at a total cost of more than £1 million" (an average of £71,428.57p each over the odds). In one of these cases, a departmental director who left the BBC 14 months after the BBC had notified them them of their last day of work still received 12 months’ pay "in lieu of notice".
"The BBC told us that these additional payments were generally made to reach mutually acceptable terms and, in some cases, to recognise the individual’s contribution to the BBC. The BBC has changed its policy so that it pays salary in lieu of notice only in exceptional circumstances".
The NAO also found two cases (out of 60 reviewed) where senior managers got the maximum possible payment in lieu of notice, despite the fact that the BBC knew they'd got new jobs to go to. We are told that this totalled £425k - when, in the NAO's view, best practice is to pay the notice period in monthly instalments, and stop them altogether when a new berth is secured.
And here's another sweetener the NAO found: "In 5 of our 60 sample cases, the BBC made unusual payments that were subject to little central assessment of the potential risks to the BBC of making them. These included committing to purchase £60,000 worth of consultancy services and, in another case, paying £49,000 for training, Information Technology equipment and associated tax and national insurance".
One of the case studies found someone who got a redundancy deal based on a full-time salary, when they'd been doing the job part time. The BBC said it based the payment on a full-time salary as shortly before the post was made redundant, the individual had reached agreement with the BBC to move to full-time hours.
One bit I can't find is an NAO questioning of true redundancy - and the widely held suspicion that some jobs are just renamed rather than fundamentally changed, to close a deal.
But still, there's always "pension augmentation". In the three years to December 2012, the BBC augmented the pensions of 38 departing senior managers at a total cost of £3.7 million. One executive editor, on mere £79k a year, got a pension pot top up of £316k - bringing the total cost of their exit deal to £474k. The departmental director, who got paid for notice despite working through it, on a healthy £300k p.a., also got £266k added to their pension pot - bringing the cost of their departure to £866k - putting them second only to Mark Byford in recent years.
And on Mark, the NAO observes: The BBC paid the departing manager the maximum possible salary in lieu of notice, despite deciding to negotiate a redundancy settlement eight months before the manager left.
Case study 4 is a little gem: A senior manager tells the BBC he's been head-hunted, but his new employers are paying less. Though he's not redundant, a compromise deal is done. Now the NAO says the individual has paid the money back to Auntie stating that they would not wish to benefit from a payment that could not be demonstrated to be fully and appropriately authorised. The NAO described governance of the case as "seriously deficient"; a finance case for the dosh reported an agreement between Lucy Adams and Mark Thompson - now the BBC says there was no such agreement.
- 2pm update: The Guardian says this nice chap is Roly Keating
Sharon Baylay's deal is a hoot - ex-gratia payments, notice paid, maternity leave and unused leave - Case study 5 if you're interested.
Here's the full NAO chart of the Top 10 payouts over the past three years. I've started putting names in, and with your help, we can pin them all down. Can't we ?
No comments:
Post a Comment