Recount

I sometimes wonder, when reading FOI responses from the BBC, if I'm missing something. It seems that, under a major programme of cuts and re-investment like Delivering Quality First, presumably complete with a Programme Office and all that project good stuff, there's no easy record of how many redundancies, divided into compulsory and voluntary, there have been. How can you tell if the re-structuring funds associated with the DQF programme have been effectively spent ?  How can you face the unions if you don't know how many compulsory redundancies were required ? Maybe the Public Accounts Committee, looking at BBC major projects in a session in Salford Quays on Wednesday, might have a poke around.

Here's the Q & A

How many (1) compulsory and (2) voluntary redundancies have there been since DQF began in October 2012 up to 31 March 2016? Of those two categories, how many were (a) grades 2-10, (b) grade 11 and (c) SM1, SM2, or Executive Board/Team.

As the numbers who have taken redundancy would be significant, in order to respond in full to your request, we would have to check each of these individuals’ human resources record who had been made redundant between 2012 to 2016 to see if they had been made redundant under DQF and whether the redundancy were compulsory or voluntary. We estimate that to carry out this search would take more than two and a half days. Under section 12 of the Act, we are al owed 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).