Busy day

It's all going on. Aung San Suu Kyi at the new Broadcasting House, Mark Thompson facing the DCMS Select Committee at the Commons - but where was Lord Patten ?

History may reveal he spent some time in a hotel in the refurbished St Pancras Station - a little far north for a Barnes man, but you have to make sacrifices to deliver a watertight DG selection procedure.  Meanwhile, those young whippersnappers at the BBC FOI department - schtum since December - decided to dump those they've been holding back...

Still going through them, but here's some odds and ends. The BBC spent £1m on "opinion and reputation surveys and tracking" in the three years from 2008 to 2011. The BBC subsidised staff catering by £2.2m in 2010/11. And here's the spend on alcoholic drinks for staff over the past five years.

The BBC spent £8.2m on "consultants" in 2010/11. (We define consultancy to mean an external company (this excludes individuals contracted via the Freelance Contracts Team), that provides expert advice with regard to corporate issues where the particular mixture of skills and expertise is not available internally or where we require independent advice.)


For all the brouhaha about cutting management, the number of staff paid more than £100k at 1st October 2011 was 305 - UP six from the same time in 2010.

The BBC currently has 77 staff who officially work from home.

The BBC spent over £21m in 2010/11 with Reed Personnel on the provision of agency staff. Remember that when they say they've reduced the headcount....