Company news

Conservative MP David  Mowat, who represents Warrington South, has discovered that 320 "non-talent-based" employees (that reads badly, but probably means staff who are not on-air) are paid as if they are companies. He told the Commons....

"Tax avoidance matters are at the heart of this thing about us all being in this together. I sent a Freedom of Information request to the BBC to ask them how many employees they had who were not having tax deducted at source. The answer is that they have 320 non-talent based (staff), so this is administration employees, earning more than £50,000 a year but (for whom) PAYE and National Insurance is not deducted at source. I would ask my own frontbench, who are conducting a review across the whole of Government in terms of making sure this isn't happening but which explicitly excludes the BBC, to reconsider that."

The last "non-talent based" employee who was paid through a company that I can remember was John Birt.