BECTU Orgainise Lobby Of Parliament Over BBC Cuts

The broadcast media and entertainment union (BECTU) is organising a lobby of parliament about the proposed cuts facing the BBC.
Union members are being asked to speak to their MPs about the damage that will be caused if Delivering Quality First is allowed to go through unopposed.
Delivering Quality First is the BBC's plan for how it can best deliver the highest quality programmes and content to audiences until the end of the Charter in 2017.
The BBC announced it during its strategy for dealing with the 16% loss in income created by the agreement with government to freeze the licence fee until 2017. Two thousand job losses were announced coupled with cuts to staff terms and conditions and cuts to a range of output under the banner - Delivering Quality First.
BECTU believes that unchanged the proposals will destroy quality at the BBC rather than deliver it. The union is campaigning to persuade the BBC to re-think its plans.
BECTU members have objected strongly to the proposed move of production from Birmingham to Bristol which seems very likely to cost the BBC money rather than making any savings.
Meanwhile the union has also slammed the BBC’s efforts to become less London- centric.
BECTU said:"The BBC claims it is becoming less London–centric but despite this there are deep cuts in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The English Regions are also facing budget cuts and will be struggling to deliver quality programmes."
The BBC however has said that they had to agreed a new tough but realistic licence fee settlement with the Government to freeze the licence fee for a further four years to April 2017 and with it they have to take on new obligations.
"To bring expenditure in line with income we will therefore need to find new efficiency savings," said BBC Director-General Mark Thompson.
Thompson continued:"We want to continue to prioritise investment in content which means we will have to lose some jobs, although in some areas savings will come through improvements in the way we do things, through technology or through investment choices.
"We will reduce spending on running costs. To protect front-line content and services, efficiencies to the cost of running the BBC, including back-office and support functions such as HR and finance are greater than for content areas. We have already announced our plans to cut Senior Manager numbers and paybill even further."
"We will seek to reduce licence fee collection costs even further and maximise commercial revenues within the clear boundaries we have set. Despite this we will have to do fewer things better in content areas, and we will work hard to focus and ensure we do this without affecting quality wherever possible," concluded Thompson.
However with the BBC taking steps away from radio cuts – BECTU and others in the industry are wondering where the money will be then saved.
With the Danny Baker Show live on BBC London,one of the cuts already made in October, it leaves the union on tender hooks.
BECTU said:"The BBC is now appearing to have second thoughts about forcing through drastic cuts in local radio but according to the union it would seem that funds can only be found to be put back into local radio if they are cut from somewhere else."