BBC report leaks

Press leaks have revealed that the Davies review committee could recommend the privatisation of BBC Resources and advertising on some TV channels.

If the leaks prove to be correct BECTU will be running a campaign over the summer to oppose the recommendations.

The Davies committee, set up by the government to examine the future of the licence fee, is due to report in late July to the minister Chris Smith. A three month public consultation period will then follow.

Although the committee has worked in secret, hints of the final recommendations began to emerge late in June in several newspaper articles.

The Financial Times broke the story about advertising being introduced on the BBC's new TV channels, like News 24, while the Observer predicted that the committee would silence complaints about commercial activity at the Corporation by ordering a Resources sell-off.

Until the Davies committee report is finally published these proposals cannot be confirmed, but the union is already preparing to put up fierce resistance to the privatisation of BBC Resources.

One of the main issues in the industrial dispute of June 1998 was the danger of BBC Resources Limited being sold at some time in the future, and assurances were given by senior managers and the Board of Governors that the new subsidiary company would remain within the BBC.

BECTU will be calling on the Corporation to honour these assurances by stating publicly that Resources Limited should remain within the BBC if the Davies Committee does in fact recommend a sell-off.

Many of the other rumoured recommendations on BBC funding are likely to be challenged by the union. In its evidence to the committee, BECTU came down firmly against advertising on new TV channels, arguing that they often overlap with BBC1 and BBC2, and the level of finance raised would never be enough to replace the licence fee.

BECTU also told the committee that, far from closing down TV channels like BBC World, the licence fee should be increased at more than the rate of inflation to help the Corporation develop its digital services.