BBC stars demand all corporation salaries be revealed

Victoria Derbyshire (pictured) is one of the presenters to sign the letter calling for action from the BBC corporation

BBC stars, such as Mariella Frostrup, Victoria Derbyshire and Dan Snow, are demanding the company reveal all salaries across the corporation in a bid to end the gender pay gap.

Nearly 250 staff members have signed an open letter which calls for ‘full pay transparency’ – including BBC Breakfast presenter, Naga Munchetty, and the company’s former China Editor, Carrie Gracie. 

The letter calls for greater transparency about what everyone earns at the BBC. 

It asks for clarity ‘about what everyone earns, about how pay is decided, and also about promotion and recruitment across all areas of the corporation’.

The open letter is also critical over the BBC’s failure to include payments made to staff through branches such as BBC Studios, which creates programmes including Strictly Come Dancing, EastEnders, and Casualty.

However, the BBC said that, as BBC Studios and BBC Worldwide were not funded by the licence fee, ‘it would be wrong to put them at a competitive disadvantage at a time we should be doing all we can to support British content against the global west coast giants’. 

Last year, a list of the BBC’s biggest earners, topped by Radio 2’s Chris Evans on more than £2 million, revealed a gap in the pay-packets of its best-known male and female stars.

BBC stars, such as Mariella Frostrup, Victoria Derbyshire and Dan Snow are demanding the company reveal all salaries across the corporation  in a bid to end the gender pay gap

BBC stars, such as Mariella Frostrup, Victoria Derbyshire and Dan Snow are demanding the company reveal all salaries across the corporation  in a bid to end the gender pay gap

BBC stars, such as Mariella Frostrup (right) and Dan Snow (left) are demanding the company reveal all salaries across the corporation in a bid to end the gender pay gap

In response, BBC director general, Tony Hall, declared a a five-point plan in January to ‘help create a fairer and more equal BBC’ but it faced backlash after the review concluded that there was ‘no evidence of gender bias in pay decision-making’. 

The review by the PwC found a 6.8% gender pay gap, lower than the 9.3% BBC average found in October. 

Critics say this is because the review didn’t take into account the vast majority of on-air presenters, editors and senior managers and the BBC Women campaign group, which represents more than 170 presenters and producers, dismissed the report and its ‘no gender bias’ result.

Hall was also questioned by MPs about the pay imbalance after Carrie Gracie resigned as the BBC’s China editor over unequal salaries. 

She accused the corporation of having a ‘secretive and illegal’ pay culture. 

all was also questioned by MPs about the pay imbalance after Carrie Gracie (pictured) resigned as the BBC's China editor over unequal salaries

all was also questioned by MPs about the pay imbalance after Carrie Gracie (pictured) resigned as the BBC’s China editor over unequal salaries

In response to the letter, which was published in The Guardian, the BBC said: ‘We already have a project planned to look at transparency at the BBC which will consider, among other things, whether all salaries from the licence fee should be published and what other measures are necessary that wouldn’t put the BBC at a competitive disadvantage’.

It continued: ‘The BBC already publishes more information about itself, its operations and its staff than any other broadcaster. We are already committed to going further and faster than any other organisation in closing our gender pay gap.’     

The full open letter to the BBC demanding pay transparency 

Dear Tony,

It’s time for full pay transparency at the BBC. Transparency about what everyone earns, about how pay is decided, and also about promotion and recruitment across all areas of the Corporation.

There is no legal bar to doing this. The BBC just needs to change the expectations of people working here, by telling them that in future their pay will be transparent.

The BBC says it wants to be “the most transparent organisation when it comes to pay”. Full publication of individual salaries and benefits (and other payments through BBC Studios and all commercial arms) would have a lasting positive impact on the culture of the BBC and beyond.

There are many reasons for doing this now:

1. It’s the fastest, cheapest and fairest way to begin to tackle unequal pay at the BBC. When everyone knows exactly what everyone is paid, it is easy to identify comparators and start conversations about value. Transparency is the tool that can stop the BBC breaking the law on Equal Pay.

2. At the same time, transparency is by far the most effective way to uncover pay discrimination of all kinds – against ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, LGBTQ+ people, or on the basis of age or any other legally protected characteristic.

3. It’s also the best way to uncover pay differences linked to characteristics which may not be legally protected but which employers committed to fairness should want to monitor, such as bias linked to class, educational background or regional origin.

4. There is increasing evidence that pay transparency is good for employers, not just for employees. We believe it will save a lot of money. Our pay structure is likely to flatten as very high salaries become even harder to justify. And the cost of the BBC’s current approach is not just financial, it has also eroded trust and morale. This change in culture will attract and retain great people, because people want to work in places where they are heard and respected, and where they understand how their pay is set.

5. The BBC spends public money. The public deserves to know how that money is spent.

We love the BBC and believe in its values of transparency and accountability. We want to work with you to help the BBC live up to those values, and to restore the trust of staff and audiences in the BBC’s stated commitments.

Signed by:

Women: 

Kathy Clugston

Sheila Dillon

Jill Anderson

Helen Morgan-Wynne

Amelia Butterly

Joanna Impey

Charu Shahane

Rachel Foley

Tammi Walker

Uta Hoett

Farhana Dawood

Alice Porter

Ellie Costello

Helen Czerski

Rosanna Lafalce

Mairead Devlin

Hannah Fry

Siobhan Toman

Gabriela Pomeroy

Linda McAuley

Samira Ahmed

Clare McDonnell

Orla Guerin

Naga Munchetty

Victoria Derbyshire

Rachel Horne

Mariella Frostrup

Carrie Gracie

Sandy Walsh

Rebecca Kesby

Catherine Leng

Laurence Zavriew

Philippa Thomas

Razia Iqbal

Manuela Saragosa

Krisztina Satori

Maggie Jonas

Hannah Bayman

Maryam Moshiri

Hewete Haileselassie

Lucy Martin

Winifred Robinson

Laura Barrow

Clare Parsons

Maura Cullen

Farnaz Ghazizadeh

Erika Benke

Alice Adderley

Lucy Bailey

Sarah Austin

Jenny Horrocks

Krassimira Twigg

Rachel Kennedy

Jat Dhillon

Victoria Holden

Jayne Egerton

Lisette Johnston

Janette Ballard

Nicola Careem

Penny Dale

Erin Riley

Nikki Jecks

Janey Wall

Ruth Cobbe

Sabina Kapoor

Wendy Austin

Bilkisu Labaran

Joanna Hall

Nisha Lahiri

Becky Lipscombe

Janet Ball

Samantha Fenwick

Ilona Vinogradova

Claire Bowes

Ellen Otzen

Jayne Egerton

Olga Smirnova

Farhana Haider

Alex Duval-Smith

Haley Thomas

Karnie Sharp

Eleanor Garnier

Karin Gianonne

Lucy Siegle

Alison Kee

Sarah Bell

Natasha Peach

Elaine Dunseath

Mary Rhodes

Kathy Long

Mary Harper

Susanna Jacobs

Tamasin Ford

Audrey Brown

Sixty-two more women signed anonymously. 

 

 Men:

Adam Rutherford

Julian Worricker

Matthew Sweet

Rajan Datar

Shaun Keaveny

Paul Lewis

Gideon Coe

Jim Lee

Adam Pasternicki

Dan Snow

Laurence Knight

Fergus Nicholl

Mike Johnson

Paul Henley

Roger Phillips

Rev Richard Coles

James Hazell

Aleem Maqbool

Hugh Sykes

Vaughan Savidge

Ben Thompson

Theo Leggett

Malik Dhala

Jonathan Izard

Wes Butters

Viji Alles

David Austin

Jonathan Kempster

Richard Lister

Nick Kelly

Swaminathan Natarajan

Craig Templeton Smith

Jim Al-Khalili

Johny Cassidy

Jerry Smit

Huw Morgan

Abdiraheem Saed

David Campanale

Paul Clark

Neil Sleat

Kevin Fong

Zeb Soanes

Zak Brophy

Mike Innes

Ian Brimacombe

James Fitzgerald

Robin Ince

Chris Mason

Tom Butler

David Cole

Robin Banerji

Julian Marshall

Peter Hanington

Ian Skelly

Steven Campbell

Daniel Avis

Jon Donnison

Rob Wilson

Martin Patience

Volodymyr Muzyczka

Marco Oriunto

Akwasi Sarpong

Twenty-four more men signed the letter anonymously.

 



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