BBC privatisation gets go-ahead

BECTU has been warned by Culture Minister Tessa Jowell that she intends to approve the sale of BBC Technology to Siemens.

In a fax received by the union today (September 24) Jowell says she is satisfied that a list of concerns raised by the union had been properly considered by the BBC, and consequently she had "no legitimate reason" to block the sale.

Officials at the Department of Culture Media and Sport have confirmed that a letter approving the privatisation of BBCT is now on its way to the BBC, and the union is expecting an announcement that the transfer of ownership to Siemens will go ahead on October 1.

The news came less than two weeks after a deputation of BECTU representatives briefed the Minister on a range of problems that the sale could cause, including the impact on 1400 staff employed by BBC Technology.

Gerry Morrissey, BECTU's Assistant General Secretary, said: "This decision will come as a blow to our members in BBC Technology who have opposed this sell-off since it was first proposed. Despite the protection we have won for their terms and conditions after the sale, it could turn out to be bad news for some of them once jobs start to go, and it's certainly not good for the BBC in the long term".

"This isn't just the BBC selling off one of its 'Crown Jewels', it's a case of handing its central nervous system over to the private sector", he said. BBC Technology is responsible for the Corporation's entire IT network, most of its broadcast-critical engineering systems, and its main telephone switchboard.

Since the sale was announced last November, BECTU has campaigned against the principle of privatisation, with the full support of members in the company who recently rejected the sell-off by nearly twenty to one in a postal ballot.

The BBC has justified the move on the grounds that selling the company off will immediately raise more than £100m when Siemens pays for its shares, and should yield a guaranteed saving of £30m a year on the Corporation's £200m technology bill.

However, BECTU has condemned the sale as a short-term manoeuvre to raise desperately-needed cash, which will rebound with serious consequences over the life of the ten-year exclusive contract that Siemens has been given.

According to the union, the BBCT sale will not save as much money as promised, just like most outsourcing exercises, and many of the BBC's plans for a digital future will be frustrated by the involvment of a profit-lead technology provider, instead of an in-house subsidiary.

Managers have also been accused of "exporting a redundancy problem" by BECTU. Both the BBC and Siemens accept that job losses are inevitable some time after the sell-off, and the union has complained that it was not allowed to discuss a possible in-house restructuring, including redundancies, that could have cut costs.

Negotiations over the effect on staff produced a package of guarantees under which Siemens will not implement any compulsory redundancies for the first year, and staff terms and conditions will remain unchanged for three years. Ex-BBC staff will also be able to join a pension scheme with benefits that are broadly comparable to the BBC's own scheme.

But, despite winning staff protection that union officials believe sets a new benchmark for outsourcing at the BBC, there was still disappointment and anger among members at the Corporation's willingness to sell off hundreds of staff who have given decades of their lives to public service broadcasting.

Tessa Jowell's fax to BECTU did not list any conditions that had been imposed on the sale, and union officials are trying to establish whether the BBC will be able to hand other technical areas over to Siemens without government approval, as the original contract allowed.

BECTU expressed concerns to the minister that the so-called "Technology Framework Agreement" with Siemens could lead to technical departments in News, Nations & Regions, World Service, and Radio, being privatised without proper consultation.

Now that the privatisation has been cleared by Government, BECTU officials intend to set up further meetings with Siemens managers to talk about the detailed transfer of staff out of the BBC.