What next at the Beeb ? (part one)

Around a month ago a former colleague who flew much closer to the stratosphere of BBC governance desxribed Mark Thompson as "a weak DG".  The next couple of days will show whether or not he's gripped things up and will stay the full term.   It doesn't now matter whether Mark Byford volunteered the sacrifice of his role as Deputy DG to his former News colleague - let's see whether Thommo has made the most of the opportunity it affords.

One way of reducing salaries is to reduce status and responsibility. By removing two big signings, Lucy Adams and Sharon Baylay, from the Executive Board, and making them report up through COO Caroline Thompson, their status, responsibility and therefore salary should fall.

Lucy Adams, head of HR, says she took a pay cut to come from the lawyers Eversheds - yet she's still by a country mile the most highly-paid HR boss in the public sector . She may want to buff up her CV on Linkedin for a move back to the private sector in the New Year, to avoid a further cut. The private sector may, however, wish to consider how she's handled the BBC Pension issue.  

Sharon Baylay, Director of Marketing and Communications, came from Microsoft, to the surprise of some of Gates' lieutenants. Over recent months she's seen Thommo hack at her budget and top management staff. So it's a pay cut next year or off to the headhunters. Try Heidrick and Struggles.

In News, there'll be an assumption of preferment for Director Helen Boaden, to join the top team. But Peter Horrocks, Director of a daft Byford legacy, BBC Global News, shouldn't be forgotten.   If Helen and Peter can work sensibly together, the irony is that they're more likely to deliver a single, streamlined management structure for "Journalism" than Byford had the bottle to do.   

Now if there's a strategy to reduce status and responsibility, Thommo will also take an axe to the BBC Direction Group, formerly known as the Board of Management. It recent years it's never been a decision making group; more a chance to listen to decisions already made, and, if brave, whinge. If it goes, everyone on it can expect a pay cut.  It's now made up of regional panjandrums, and people who've been left off the Executive. 

Then Thommo can lead by demanding that the only remaining "Boards" are in the big divisions - Journalism, Vision, Audio & Music and Future Media & Technology.  Dozens of other self-designated boards sit on a regular basis, taking strategy "papers", "signing off" finance cases that are none of their business, filling time for bureaucrats and generally infuriating programme-makers.

Power is mainly achieved through money in the BBC, and the next stage should be to shackle the big divisions more closely. At the moment, they still have too much money, but are clever at hiding it.  The only central control is through the labyrinthine and costly approvals route for finance cases, which occasionally makes it difficult for them to spend "their own money".   Take 10% out of their budgets for next year, and make them bid for it back on a single sheet of A4, Thommo.

Part Two will appear above....