Resources Ltd shake-out begins

Hundreds of job cuts have been announced in BBC Resources Limited only weeks after 4500 staff were transferred to the new company's books.

BECTU has said that its warnings of painful cost-savings once the Limited Company was established have been borne out by plans for more than 220 redundancies across London Post Production, London Television Studios, Outside Broadcasts and BBC Wales.

In every area managers have blamed the cuts on the need for all departments in Resources Limited to balance their books and achieve profit targets. A downturn in BBC bookings due to reduced programme budgets has exacerbated the financial strain of paying Corporate overheads as well as a "contribution" to the central costs of running the Resources Directorate.

Despite spending significant sums of money on a marketing operation to attract external work like TV commercials and business videos, BBC Resources management admit that bookings from the outside world have not materialised as quickly as they hoped.

Faced with less demand from BBC producers, and stiff earnings targets, departmental bosses say that they have no choice but to cut back.

Among the cuts packages tabled during July and August were:

• London Scenic Services
  Once employed over 600 staff - now to be reduced to a rump of 25 supervisors, following 59 job losses, with day-to-day staffing in the future by casual labourers. Scenic Artists all go as well.

• London Post Production
  The end of most off-line editing means the loss of 92 posts with all Assistant Editors facing the sack, one in three Editors, and further cuts in Graphics and Engineering.

• London TV Studios and Location Resources
  69 potential redundancies following the merger of London TV Studios and Location Resources (London and Manchester OBs and Film), including the centralisation of Stores and Purchasing and a single Mechanical Workshop.

• BBC Wales
  Local Resources management announced 7 job cuts as they "fine-tuned the business".

More announcements were expected in BBC Birmingham and Visual Effects, where the union and management are due to meet on 7 September.

In all areas hit by the cuts, BECTU representatives have questioned the ability of BBC Resources to deliver any service to their clients if the redundancies go ahead - the union is once again planning to challenge senior BBC management about the continuing erosion of the Corporation's craft base and production departments caused by reduced programme budgets.

In all sections where redundancies are threatened, the union is aiming to minimise the impact on individuals who want to stay in work, and will be insisting that management stick by this June's ACAS agreement which offers longer notice, and a better chance of redeployment, for staff facing redundancy.