BBC Regional Redundancies

Losing 15-20 in each region?! What's the actual staff level for a BBC English region?

I don't know if that figure is correct, but if it refers to a region then it depends which region you're talking about. The Midlands will have more staff than South East as its got more radio stations in its patch*.

If you think that each edition of Inside Out probably had at least 2 or 3 people working on it, each radio station has lost a few programmes as they're all a standardised duration and single presenter, plus the shared late night programmes are going. That's quite a few per region before any roles from regional news are removed.



*and BBC London will have the smallest staff numbers as there's only one radio station and the TV side has no operations department of its own

I was thinking more about the TV operation, although yes, there will be cross over, but (for instance) there can't be many at Southampton who directly influence Radio Berkshire's output ? Although the reverse direction, then yes ?

That was the figure given in Broadcast - the original announcement said 450 staff across the English regions, so it might be even more in some.

Redundancy is often less about saving money and more about saving future spending and restructuring, so often there is an investment elsewhere. You see it quite often that companies spend a fortune on a new product after having made several redundant - usually doesn't come across well but often needed to move forward. Ultimately the money saved from staff reductions in the regions will go back into the pot - and even though it is a slightly smaller pot due to the Over 75s licence fee issue that money will ultimately be reallocated - it would be nice if the regions got some tangible benefit for the pain they're going through, rather than it going to say funding a platform to air a Gemma Collins podcast.

As an aside this thread has just appeared in my phone's Andriod/Google list of unsolicited 'clickbait' articles!

It is currently different in each region depending on local requirements, age and type of kit, complexity of programmes etc. (For example a region that only makes 1830 and 2230 opts won’t need anywhere near the number of people in a site that makes all opts plus weeklies).

A new staffing template is being rolled out, along with standard kit for each region, though it will take time for this to happen.

It’s not a mystery as how many people work on each programme each day, it’s just not public information (and why should it be?)

There won't be any money to go back in the pot to be reallocated. The current cuts are the final part of savings required to meet a drop in BBC income of £800m, largely from the freezing of the licence fee from 2011 to 16. Add to that £250m lost to fund over-75 licences, £120m due to covid and £40m due to the 250,000 less licences being bought last year.....

The BBC England cuts of 450 are only part of it with another 520 in BBC News and 150 in the Nations so they are all taking a big hit.

The figure of 15-20 jobs lost per England region is probably in the the right ball park. In areas where Inside Out is going that could account for a third of that number. Add in TV and online and you're there. Even in London where Inside Out will be replaced by a new programme most of the existing staff have opted for redundancy.

Because the BBC are a publically financed and accountable organisation?

Yes, but there are legitimate limits to the amount of information that ought to be in the public domain regarding the minutiae of staffing levels and working practices.

You could always look at the publicly available BBC Annual Report which has five pages (of the 268) devoted to staffing. It shows staff numbers broken down by 27 categories. If you would rather have numbers per region you could always send an FOI request and they should respond.

Yes, I could do. To be honest it's not a question that personally keeps me awake at night. It's not really possible, without active digging, to put the figure of 450 redundancies into meaningful context.

The BBC (at least the Public Service bit) is covered by Freedom of Information legislation. Job titles, descriptions and pay scales should be available if you ask but I suspect it's not covered in the annual report simply because they think the public aren't generally interested in that level of detail.

The BBC is already required to publish salary details of named individuals who earn more than £150k. Not quite the £83k you wanted but a start.