Lily gilded

A Freedom of Information enquiry by the indefatigable and improbable "Ms Lily Burlero" has revealed that the current tensions between the BBC World Service and the Foreign Office go back to January 2010.

Lily first lodged her request to find out about £7.7m of Grant In Aid repaid by the BBC to the FCO way back in  May 2010 - with the BBC side only coming forward with their answer last week.  And for fans of financial gavottes mixed with mandarin-speak and BBC bureacracy, the ten pages of redacted emails are a joy.

Briefly, the FCO found a £100m hole in its accounts in late 2009, have failed to protected itself from exchange rate falls for sterling - and predicted a £110m hole for the following year.  Under-secretaries were sent out in all directions to take money from FCO beneficiaries in Janauary 2010 - and the target was to get £11m from the BBC.  The BBC offered £5m, as a mixture of underspend and delayed capital projects.  The deal was struck at £7.7m, but Director World Service Peter Horrocks got a clear warning that there would be a cut of 10% in real terms in his budget the following year.

Meanwhile the tap-dancing by the BBC in response to Ms Burlero's enquiry will have done Auntie no favours with the Information Commissioner's Office.  It took nearly thirteen months to get an answer - just a tad over the requirement to respond within 20 working days.

Let us remember also that this all took place before the General Election - when Miliband, D was at the FCO, and  Gordon Brown was still at Number 10.