The following letter from myself and Jean Seaton is being published tomorrow or Monday in the FT. Despite the positive spin being placed on the settlement by BBC execs, we were shocked by the apparent ease with which the coalition successfully trampled over decades of constitutional independence.

 

When combined with the 20% job cuts in Ofcom announced today, conspiracy theorists might look back to the James Murdoch MacTaggart lecture last year for a preview of what was to come.

 

Steve

 

 

 

 

Sir,

 

The government’s imposition of a licence fee settlement which amounts to a 16% cut in the BBC’s income raises a fundamental question about the BBC’s independence from government. While BBC negotiations with incumbent governments have always involved robust diplomacy, they have historically taken place over several months and with due respect by government negotiators for the BBC’s separateness from government departments as well as its cultural and democratic importance.

 

The brutal arm-twisting which this week appears to have taken place over a period of three days, using government cuts as an excuse for transferring a raft of departmental spending to the BBC while freezing the licence fee, has demonstrated a contempt for the principle of BBC independence which is unprecedented. The notion that the BBC should “suffer” the same pain as government departments is itself revealing evidence of the government’s determination to treat it as an arm of its own fiscal policy. The BBC belongs to the licence payers. Who asked them if they agreed? Do they approve of the reduced investment in television and radio programmes that must inevitably follow?

 

The BBC Trust was established to stand up for the licence payers, but was clearly compromised in what should have been a constitutional duty to consult licence payers before responding to government. That it did not do so is both a testament to the government’s successful intimidatory tactics, and to inadequate mechanisms to protect the interests of licence payers. Now that the Trust is to stay, it must re-establish itself as a constitutional safeguard for the public interest as well as ensuring that the newly transferred World Service is protected from direct Foreign Office intervention. In the absence of any such protections, this week’s events could well mark the moment that the balance of power between government and the BBC shifted irreversibly. The rest of the world will be watching with interest.

 

 

Prof Steven Barnett, Professor of Communications

Prof Jean Seaton, Professor of Media History,

University of Westminster