Revamp of Broadcasting house costing more than Wembley?

NAO launches inquiry into BBC building work

David Hencke, Westminster correspondent
Wednesday February 22, 2006


The National Audit Office is holding an inquiry into the spending of over £800m of licence payers' money on the redevelopment of the BBC's flagship headquarters at Broadcasting House - only a week after a damning report which castigated the corporation for the way it added £60m to fitting out new buildings at White City.
Alan Williams, the Labour MP for Swansea West and deputy chairman of the powerful Commons public accounts committee, has asked Sir John Bourn, the comptroller and auditor general, for a short report on the BBC management's handling of the work - which has been bedevilled by delays and will now not be occupied until 2010.

The NAO said it had prepared a report and was sending it to the MP.

The BBC has spent around £190m refurbishing the listed building, the original home of BBC Radio, including new studios. They have also restored Lord Reith's orginal office and council chamber to its original art deco glory.

Mark Thompson, the director general, is expected to move back to Broadcasting House from White City. But the building has been completed nine months behind schedule, triggering penalty clauses against the BBC's agent, Land Securities, which is in charge of the design-and-build project.

The cost of the first phase of the scheme has also overrun by £20m. The BBC said tonight that some £7m had been spent on extra security arrangements following 9/11 to protect staff and another £13m has been spent on refurbishing a nearby building, Western House, the headquarters for BBC Radio 2.

The corporation is also planning to spend some £400m on fitting out the new broadcasting centre with some of the most up-to-date technical equipment.

A BBC spokesman said tonight: "We are holding amicable discussions with Bovis and Land Securities on how to proceed. Basically we have to stick to a £800m budget so we will have to make changes to the next phase."

Bovis also confirmed that it was holding discussions with the BBC and Land Securities about the next phase. Work has been delayed on the project while these are completed.

BBC staff, who face losing 4,000 jobs plus further moves from London to Manchester, are critical of the amount of money being spent on new buildings, while the National Union of Journalists has attacked the corporation for wasting cash on the developments.

The Project is paid for by a public-private partnership involving a special bond – so no licence fee monies are involved in the development.

I've no idea what's going on with the sell-off and management of BBC properties. There are some BBC buildings which were sold to LST and leased back. But then LST and the BBC decided this wasn't working out for anyone and so some further deal was done resulting in LST walking away with a profit of £20-odd-million pounds. Now... if I sell you an orange for £1 and then you sell it back to me and make a profit, is there any way I can also have made a profit?

In Belfast the building housing the Capita call centre and which will soon contain all the BBC human resources (also outsourced to Capita) is owned by the BBC but occupied by hardly any BBC staff (though does contain a studio - no gallery though - you have to drive a scanner truck into the back yard). The BBC staff who don't fit into Broadcasting House in Belfast are located in rented space in a non-BBC building across the road.

Then there is the Media Centre. It has no BBC signage on it. Is this for aesthetic reasons? If so, I can't really understand why it has a big Tesco sign on it. If the lack of BBC signage is for some other reason, what is it?

At TV Centre over Christmas there was no food (incidentally there was no food at most BBC premises but people in TVC feel more important and kick up a bigger stink about such things) because of confusion between the BBC, it's landlord (Land Securities-Trillium) and the company which LST had sub-contracted to supply catering services. God knows how many layers of management are involved to manage all those service contracts just to make sandwiches. How is it more efficient than the BBC employing staff to cook food for it's own staff, or even for the BBC to contract the services of the caterer itself? At every level of the contract, each company will want a slice of the cake (no pun intended).

I'm not suggesting for a moment that this is all madness. There must be some sense in it somewhere. Surely?

I thought that ALL of BBC Radio was moving to the new BH complex, but according to Radio 2's website they're moving to somewhere called Western House.

Also, which bit is BBC News moving into and when?

There seems to be three bits to me. The original BH (left in the photo below), a new wing of similar shape opposite it (right, below), and a linking bit at the back. The first two seem to be almost ready, and the back bit has just been started. Is BBC News going in the new wing (right bit below), or the back bit? If the back bit, it can't be until 2011/12, but it has been said they are moving in 2007/8. Has this slipped?

Incidentally Birmingham now costs in excess of £2M per year in rent plus the drama centre which is a lot of money for a corporation spending more money on programming.

But as they owned the huge Pebble Mill complex, how much did they spend on it's upkeep?

It's like the diffrence in buying a house compared with renting a house - buying tends to cost more as you're responsible for all the maintainence