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 (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
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.