Reputations

An esteemed correspondent has pointed to three leaked documents from BBC Wales about the options under consideration to make the 20% cuts required by DG Mark Thompson. This is part of the process known as "Delivering Quality First".  All three are plangent cries for protection from this nonsense, which, if implemented, will reduce, apparently, BBC Wales, BBC Cymru and BBC Sport in Wales to a pitiful laughing stock, barely able to prevent a break-down of democracy in the Principality.

Document One fits the slideshow template, which is then shared in breast-beating sessions with other DQF teams.  It's the one to read, littered with shrouds such as "huge reputational risk".  All the easy cuts are in the "difficult second 10%" - e.g. getting rid of continuity announcers.   The News and Current Affairs paper, Document Two, says 20% cuts will reduce staffing from 300 to 240 - and points to "major reputational risk and failure to deliver on BBC public purposes".  The sport proposal, Document Three, talks about 24 jobs going - but never offers the base.  The shrouds are there a-plenty: "Reduce number of Scrum V Live & Y Clwb Rygbi pundits from 2 to 1. Saving £20K. Risk: Erosion of editorial diversity and authority".

It's wrong just to poke fun at Cardiff. All the DQF documents are constructed in the same daft way.   Always based on taking away; never on constructing a budget from the bottom up.   What could a commercial tv and radio broadcaster do with a mere 240 News and Current Affairs staff in Wales ?  We'll never know - they're driven by the bottom line - but benchmarking never appears in these sort of documents.  It should.