Jonathan Poole
Via email to: [FOI #11875 email]
25 June 2009
Dear Mr Poole,
Freedom of Information Act request – RFI20090695
Thank you for your request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (“the
Act”) received on 12 May 2009 seeking:
“a comma separated value export of the database table(s) pertaining all BBC expense claims for
the 2008/2009 financial year.”
Under section 1(1) of the Act, I can confirm that the BBC does hold the information you have
requested. As the BBC employs in excess of 22,000 people, an export of the entire database
would run into hundreds of thousands of entries. We would need to go through the report to
remove any information which is not covered by the Act – i.e. information the BBC holds for the
purpose of “
journalism, art or literature” (see Schedule I, Part VI of the Act).
Therefore, I estimate that to deal with your request would take more than two and a half days;
under section 12 of the Act, we are allowed to refuse to handle the request if it would exceed the
appropriate limit. The appropriate limit has been set by the Regulations (SI 2004/3244) as being
£450 (equivalent to two and a half days work, at an hourly rate of £25).
However, in response to a different Freedom of Information request (RFI20090644), we have
released the expenses of the top 50 earners in the BBC for the 2008/09 financial year. I am
attaching a copy of this information, which I hope you will find helpful.
Selection of the top 50
In identifying the top 50, the BBC has followed recent decisions of the Information Commissioner
(including some relating to BBC personnel). The top 50 staff are those who meet the two-part
test applied by the ICO in the BBC decisions: namely whether the individuals have significant
responsibility for the expenditure of public funds and/or the creation of public policy. This
includes such persons as those on the Executive Board of the BBC, with the remainder at the level
of Controller, Head of Department or Director.
Individuals engaged by the BBC as talent have not been included in this list. This is also in line with
a recent decision notice of the ICO where the Commissioner decided that unlike senior BBC
employees, such as those listed in the appendix, the roles undertaken by “talent” did not relate to
the performance of a public function involving the spending of public money and/or the taking of
influential policy decisions. Consequently, individuals in those cases had a reasonable expectation
that their personal data would not be disclosed and it would be unfair and a breach of section
40(2) of the Act to do so. We have therefore excluded any talent information from this list.
Information about Expenses
For the purposes of this FOI request, please note that “expenses” are those costs incurred
personally by BBC staff and subsequently re-claimed through the BBC’s expenses system in
accordance with the staff expenses policy. It is important to note that the BBC also operates a
central booking system for arranging travel and transport for staff, including accommodation,
flights, and taxis. This system involves using a small number of preferred suppliers in order to help
maximize value for money to the BBC. Where bookings are made using this system all costs are
settled directly by the BBC, without staff being required to incur any expenses individually. These
costs are not therefore re-claimed by way of expenses.
You should be aware the BBC does not give any employee an “expense account”. Only costs that
fall within the BBC’s expenses policy can be reclaimed and all are checked and authorised by a
more senior figure or a member of the BBC Finance community.
From time to time senior managers are asked to personally meet the costs of items that the BBC
does not regard as personal expenses. These could include, for example, the payment of a facility
fee for a location, or paying a venue at the end of a departmental meeting or away-day off BBC
premises. This is usually necessary where immediate payment is required and the BBC accounts
system cannot be used. In many of these circumstances, BBC policy is for the most senior
member of staff to settle the account, and the most convenient way of the BBC recompensing the
manager for this expenditure is through the expenses system. For clarification, the differentiation
on this point is made as follows: if the member of staff was present at an event and signed off as
the most senior person present then it is shown in the column entitled "Incurred by myself".
When the member of staff did not attend an event, but was signing off the expenditure as
authorised by themselves, for example a departmental away-day at which they were not present,
then these would be put into a second column entitled "Incurred by Department".
The BBC is a global organisation and senior leaders across all major organisations inevitably incur
some expenses. Whilst expenses are common across all major organisations, the BBC has a
rigorous expenses policy and we are careful to ensure value for money.
As well as the information contained in this release under the Freedom of Information Act, you
may be interested to know that the BBC is committed to a programme of increasing transparency
and accountability, particularly in relation to how it spends public money. We recently announced
that the salaries and detailed expenses of the members of the BBC Direction Group would be
regularly published from the autumn of this year, in line with the policy adopted by the BBC Trust.
Further, from today, the 25th of June, the BBC will be publishing detailed expenses of the Executive
Board for the past five financial years. The BBC is actively exploring how this might be significantly
extended to give the public further detailed information, including greater disclosure of senior
executives’ pay and expenses, and more detailed information on how the BBC spends the licence
fee, including areas such as total talent costs, taxis, flights etc. We will be announcing how we
intend to do this in the near future.
Information published today on bbc.co.uk
The BBC has received a large number of requests from journalists and members of the public for
expenses information and we recognise the significant public interest in this area. For this reason,
we have decided to make an exception from our standard processes and immediately publish the
information contained in this and other expenses related enquiries on the BBC FOI website, so
that information released is available to all.
Appeal rights
You may request an internal review of our decision that your request exceeds the appropriate
limit. You can either email [BBC request email] or write to BBC Information Policy & Compliance,
Room 2252, BBC White City, 201 Wood Lane, London, W12 7TS. If you are not satisfied with
the result of the internal review you then have the right to seek a further review from the
Information Commissioner. Please see http://www.ico.gov.uk or contact the Information
Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF, telephone
01625 545700 for details.
Yours sincerely,
James Leaton Gray
Head, Information Policy & Compliance
