BBC basics

It seems to me it might be cheaper for The Guardian to co-ordinate the BBC's Delivering Quality First review - all the paperwork seems to be going through their hands anyway, and Pat "Yammer" Younge and Caroline Thomson are left saying "they're only ideas".

Today's news is from the Human Resource side of life.  It says 5% of all staff are "poor performers"; less than half the staff in BBC Vision have regular appraisals (in theory compulsory to set pay levels for the year - and yet another dig at the Jana Bennett legacy); there's also pay creep in Vision (ex-prop J Bennett) where people on the same grade as those in News get around 10% more in pay.  But News is the owner and creator of the evil UPA (unpredictability allowance) where staff are paid extra in case their shifts are disrupted at short notice. This allowance has become meaningless since the arrival of the answer machine - if you don't reply to the call, you don't have to come in.

The more interesting and missing element of this paper is whether or not the HR department is ready to reform both pay and the antediluvian terms and conditions of service at the BBC.  The whole thing is only tough talk unless HR chief Lucy Adams is ready for action - and, after a year long pension battle, maybe she's not.  That would be a shame - a straight, simpler pay structure would win staff and audience approval at this time, way before cutting programmes, stations and networks.   HR teams, however, are more excited about the moves to Salford and Broadcasting House, where they have invoked launch troubles at Terminal 5 to indulge in interesting levels of spend on "training".   Great to start in brand new buildings with heritage work practices.