It’s a point that has been made many times elsewhere, but one that has to keep being made because it keeps happening. If I were to resign from my job my employer would process the paperwork and I would leave on an agreed date. The same follows for all hardworking taxpayers.
So why is it George Entwistle is able to resign from his position as Director General of the BBC of his own accord after just 54 days in the job and get a pay off amounting to one year’s salary – £450,000? The pay off amounts to £8,334 for each of the rudderless days he held the position. In addition to this he also has a licence fee funded pension pot of £877,000.
I would ask is it not incredible that decision makers at entities like the BBC, local authorities and quangos feel perfectly at ease doling out our money like confetti in this way. But it isn’t incredible, it’s nothing less than a scandal. The total absence of accountability to the public – and the unique way the BBC is funded, no doubt – makes these kind of completely unjustifiable pay offs possible. We little people are irrelevant and our dissent doesn’t matter.
That’s benevolent Auntie in action for you. When not turning a blind eye and deaf ear to the rape and sexual assault of juvenile visitors to its studios by one of its star turns over the course of decades; when not peddling ‘progressive’ socialist propaganda as unbiased comment via its news and current affairs; the nation’s supposedly beloved broadcasting institution treats licence fee payers with undisguised contempt, looking after itself and the vested interests of its self selecting executives, who consider the public purse to be a personal piggy bank to fund astronomical salaries and pension pots the rest of us can only dream of.
Compare what the BBC has sanctioned for Entwistle today with their howls of moralising outrage over the bonuses for bankers and private company executives. Apart from scale, where is the difference?
There is only one phrase to describe the BBC and its leadership, hypocritical thieving scum.
Autonomous Mind 
3 times the PM’s salary. There’s little chance that this kind of thing will ever stop. Cold comfort but at least it’s none of my money. How long will people keep paying £150 a year for this?
Well all I can say is the sooner we get the Harrogate Agenda in place the better. As far as this incident is concerned I reckon we have just been handed a gift!
FFS!
AM – do you have a good source for this bit? –
” In addition to this he also has a licence fee funded pension pot of £877,000.”
Yes Kata, it’s in the Barclay Brother Beano…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/9671132/Threat-to-Lord-Patten-as-BBC-chief-gets-1.3m-pay-off.html
Cheers AM!
I shouldn’t be shocked by how much detail the BBC coverage has left out – including and especially that pension tidbit. But then if I didn’t still get shocked, I wouldn’t get angry either….
No doubt Entwistle is a man of honour and will refuse the £450,000.
Ho Ho.
And perhaps they will sack all those who agreed to hire him on the terms they did, for gross incompetence.
But there again. they would doubtless all get a year’s salary in their turn.
Will no-one shovel out this stable?
BBC admitted this morning, it was twice the legal requirement of his contract and was done to ‘persuade’ him to go
There is also the not so small matter of the £330,000 and executive & Trust time committed to locating the market rate guy just down the corridor, and pay him double to wait a wee while to pay him off with double that.
So now they are looking at the losers, including one who is under the spotlight over the Savile farrago and another who was at the BBC, then went off to work for Bliar & Brown, and now ‘oversees aspects of the BBC via OFCOM. I’m not sure the UK can afford many more BBC uniques like this on any basis, integrity or financial.
Unless people STOP paying their license fee then the outrage will carry on. The BBC, whist providing many good services, is as corrupt as any other big business. Top-nobs at the Beeb have been being pensioned off to the tune of millions for years.
When will we learn.
You can stop paying your license fee and still watch TV, so long as it is not a live broadcast. You need a computer, net connection (which can be had cheaper than the TV license) and a bittorrent client. Quit whinging about the license fee, it’s your own fault.
To clarify, I mean to say, “It is legal to watch TV without paying the license fee providing you don’t watch, or personally yourself record, any live broadcasts.”
Everybody could stop paying the license fee tomorrow and follow the advice of Johnny above, still staying within legal boundaries. Paying the fee is insane.
I suppose I should not be surprised that the BBC thinks money grows on trees as long as it does not have to earn it. I am so glad I do not pay my licence fee to this corrupt and dishonest corporation. How do we get it broken up and consigned to the dustbin? Rt.com, I am your biggest fan !
Good post, and like everyone else here this whole business makes me FUCKING ANGRY.
They are not scared of us and they need to be made to be so. I do not advocate violence, not even against these bastards, but there are non-violent ways to make them scared of us, and the first thing is to find a way to ensure that thieving scum like this, when they get the boot, lose their pensions, and that should apply across the board to MPs, civil servants, councillors etc.
Under no circumstances should there ever be a pension pot boost, and the contents of their pot should be reduced to a simple lump sum related to the years of service based on say average contribution on notional earnings in line with the average in that institution say 30000 pa in the case of the BBC.
The thing that most annoys me about all these issues is not that these abysmal people make cock ups – we all do, but the utter disdain with which they treat us and our money.
I would also guess that their lovely pensions are seen by them as possibly the most desirable of all the many perks they enjoy, and the risk of losing it will do a lot to tighten sphincters and concentrate the mind.
Big story breaking on WUWT – and Entwhitsle is one of the 28 who fixed the BBC green policy: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/11/12/breaking-the-secret-list-of-the-bbc-28-is-now-public/#more-74210
I don’t recognise the names but other sure will
Here is a list the BBC tried to keep secret, it is a list of the names that attended a 2006 conference of ‘experts’ that decided in secret to deny sceptical scientists any platform on the BBC, after this secret conference attended by Entwhistle CAGW propaganda was ramped up and all sceptics were not only excluded but actively smeared by the BBC. Look how many beeboids got promotions in exchange for discarding any journalistic integrity and values. Money talks, it used a giant megaphone, all those on the list have been able to extract billions from the taxpayer over the years, yes money does talk and principles take a walk.
Robert May, Oxford University and Imperial College London
Mike Hulme, Director, Tyndall Centre, UEA
Blake Lee-Harwood, Head of Campaigns, Greenpeace
Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, Niels Bohr Institute, Copenhagen
Michael Bravo, Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge
Andrew Dlugolecki, Insurance industry consultant
Trevor Evans, US Embassy
Colin Challen MP, Chair, All Party Group on Climate Change
Anuradha Vittachi, Director, Oneworld.net
Andrew Simms, Policy Director, New Economics Foundation
Claire Foster, Church of England
Saleemul Huq, IIED
Poshendra Satyal Pravat, Open University
Li Moxuan, Climate campaigner, Greenpeace China
Tadesse Dadi, Tearfund Ethiopia
Iain Wright, CO2 Project Manager, BP International
Ashok Sinha, Stop Climate Chaos
Andy Atkins, Advocacy Director, Tearfund
Matthew Farrow, CBI
Rafael Hidalgo, TV/multimedia producer
Cheryl Campbell, Executive Director, Television for the Environment
Kevin McCullough, Director, Npower Renewables
Richard D North, Institute of Economic Affairs
Steve Widdicombe, Plymouth Marine Labs
Joe Smith, The Open University
Mark Galloway, Director, IBT
Anita Neville, E3G
Eleni Andreadis, Harvard University
Jos Wheatley, Global Environment Assets Team, DFID
Tessa Tennant, Chair, AsRia
BBC attendees:
Jana Bennett, Director of Television
Sacha Baveystock, Executive Producer, Science
Helen Boaden, Director of News
Andrew Lane, Manager, Weather, TV News
Anne Gilchrist, Executive Editor Indies & Events, CBBC
Dominic Vallely, Executive Editor, Entertainment
Eleanor Moran, Development Executive, Drama Commissioning
Elizabeth McKay, Project Executive, Education
Emma Swain, Commissioning Editor, Specialist Factual
Fergal Keane, (Chair), Foreign Affairs Correspondent
Fran Unsworth, Head of Newsgathering
George Entwistle, Head of TV Current Affairs
Glenwyn Benson, Controller, Factual TV
John Lynch, Creative Director, Specialist Factual
Jon Plowman, Head of Comedy
Jon Williams, TV Editor Newsgathering
Karen O’Connor, Editor, This World, Current Affairs
Catriona McKenzie, Tightrope Pictures catriona@tightropepictures.com
BBC Television Centre, London (cont)
Liz Molyneux, Editorial Executive, Factual Commissioning
Matt Morris, Head of News, Radio Five Live
Neil Nightingale, Head of Natural History Unit
Paul Brannan, Deputy Head of News Interactive
Peter Horrocks, Head of Television News
Peter Rippon, Duty Editor, World at One/PM/The World this Weekend
Phil Harding, Director, English Networks & Nations
Steve Mitchell, Head Of Radio News
Sue Inglish, Head Of Political Programmes
Frances Weil, Editor of News Special Events.
Well said AM, a rather tasty filleting was that.
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