Grand all round

Whilst I was nose-deep in BBC Senior Management expenses disclosures, other readers have spotted some salary changes amongst those who have their remuneration made public.

The BBC Fair Pay Fairy, aided by the Elves of Public Service Benchmarking and the Water Nymphs of Talent Retention, has sprinkled £1,000 p.a. increases on 60 or so managers, published on a Friday ahead of a Bank Holiday weekend.

There may be some empathy for those who have struggled through in Auntie's service without a rise for three or four years. There may be less for those, who, say, have had £1k added to £322,800. Or Dale Haddon, the HR operative who is about to take away substantial benefits from the lower ranks, up £1k to £191k.

In News, where I have many readers, £1k goes to Jonathan Munro, Ian Katz, Keith Blackmore, Gavin Allen, Jon Zilkha, David Holdsworth, David Jordan, and Jim Gray. Fiona Campbell has moved up £15k to £165k for her new role running Mobile/Online.

Elsewhere, we find that Bob Shennan, Director of Radio and Music, has had this new-ish role evaluated at £271k, up from the £244,565 earned as Director of Music, Radio 2, 6Music and the Asian Network. The new figure is a good way south of Helen Boaden's £352,900, paid in her last year as Director of Radio and England - but then, Helen did have a seat on the BBC Executive. Supervising Bob we have James Purnell, i/c Radio, Education, Arts, Religion, Recipes and much more, on £295k. So Purnell and Shennan together cost £214,100 more than Helen on her own, without top Board representation. And "England" now has a new superstructure of its own, under Ken MacQuarrie.

Speaking of Ken (whose "Q" is randomly upper and lower case on the BBC website), his salary seems to have gone backwards. The new Director of Nations and Regions was originally declared at £257,800, Now it's £250k. Is it possible that HR, under the beady Hughes D'Aeth eyeballs, forgot that new posts shouldn't have the old management perks of health and car allowances ?

Still, all bodes well for tomorrow's internal publication of the annual Staff Survey, the armpit thermometer of employee morale.