Doing my best

I've been berated by readers in the shires for not having the inside track on what 1,000 job cuts will mean at the BBC. You know who you are.

There is no inside track - it's a target, designed as a Budget spoiler. It's also a summer holiday spoiler for middle management, who will have to wait until the "early Autumn" to work out if they still have a job. There's roughly 400 of them, outside the much-loved Executive Board. Enjoy Tuscany.

One stated ambition is "to reduce the number of divisions. First by joining up technology teams across Digital, Engineering and Worldwide." Well that's not reducing any divisions - just limiting the number of people who think they know best about technology purchasing decisions. Joining up is not the phrasing I'd use.

Reducing layers/grades between the bottom and the top from 10 to 7 has been a totem since whenever. Tone and Valerie may wish it harder than their predecessors, but the unions will have their calculators out if it's designed just to cut the paybill.

Meanwhile, the proposed scope cuts will follow the Budget.