BBC: Finance and Independence

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a former governor.

The recent BBC report on its future had nothing to say about governance and complaints. I propose to address the issue of complaints handling today, because I believe that the crux of the BBC’s independence, impartiality and accountability to the licence fee payers lies in the way in which complaints about its service are responded to. I am focusing on accuracy and impartiality, not taste and decency complaints—for example, about Russell Brand, Jeremy Clarkson and the like—because accuracy and impartiality are what make the BBC a world and national influence. Its impartiality needs to be guaranteed by a complaints process that matches the significance of the issues complained about. For example, was the Iraqi intelligence dossier sexed up? Should it refer to ISIL or Daesh? There are the issues of climate change science, Europe and so on. The BBC forms national opinion on those matters, and if complaints about them were transparently and fairly handled and more were upheld, there would be even more confidence in the BBC and more audience satisfaction.

At the moment, only the tiniest proportion of complaints is upheld, and the BBC complaints procedure is far from simple. There is overlapping jurisdiction with Ofcom; some complaints get passed from one organisation to the other. There are three layers of complaints handling at the BBC, with the final stage being the editorial standards committee of the trust itself—five trustees closeted with staff and an adviser whom they selected. The findings are made entirely inside the organisation with no outside oversight.

Best practice today is that there should be an independent arbiter who is not associated with the organisation being complained against. Both the Commons and Lords Select Committees on the BBC explored the alternative of Ofcom. The difficulty is that Ofcom is not recognisably superior to the BBC in the way that an appeal body should be, but is on a level. One expects difficult issues to move upwards to more and more expert bodies. Moreover, the BBC’s independence and its reputation for impartiality might be compromised in the eyes of the public if just another quango—namely, Ofcom—could overrule the BBC. Ofcom’s members are appointed by the DCMS, and many of them are too steeped in the BBC and its culture from their past careers to be perceived as sufficiently detached.

Externality in complaints handling is essential. My suggestion is an ombudsman, who would report his or her findings to the trust, or whatever replaces it, which would have to have an exceptionally strong reason for rejecting the ombudsman’s findings. This system would preserve the appearance—indeed, the reality—of the BBC retaining the final say and retaining independence.

Adverse findings are naturally hard for the BBC to accept. They are slightly more palatable coming from an outside expert, and the BBC has itself resorted to the use of distinguished external figures occasionally in examining its own output. An ombudsman could be trusted to make decisions about the balance to be struck between public interest, journalistic freedom, impartiality and accuracy. It is hard to see Ofcom, as currently constituted, making better decisions than the trust. This is editorial and political territory and can only fairly be considered by an outsider with a track record of experience and judgment.