Let's meet again

The chaotic end to 2025 required no less than two BBC Board meetings in December. It's hard to tell from the consistently opaque minutes which particular governance issue required meetings on the 11th and 18th December. Remember chair Samir Shah was in and out of Lisa Nandy's office, probably for sessions on the naughty step, with meetings on 1st, 3rd and 16th December. 

On 11th December the major items were reviewing Caroline Thomson and Richard Sambrook's changes to the Editorial Standard and Guidelines Committee's remit and procedures - it had signally failed to engage formally with the bombshell Michael Prescott/David Grossman dossier.  The Board asked for some re-drafting ahead of the 18th meeting. The 11th also signed off a large spending commitment on the production of Casualty. 

The big business on the 18th was money; a strategic decision to let BBC Studios spend more to make more )where have we heard that before ?) and a first-look budget for 2026/27. Proposed organisational changes clearly spooked some non-exectuives, who asked for a full zero-budgeting exercise to report back in March. One element lacking clarity - how much the BBC is prepared to spend on the World Service, a detail still missing from last week's annual plan. 

One little item: The Board noted an update from the Chair on succession planning for the DirectorGeneral.  This a matter of 39 days after Tim Davie's resignation.