Routine matter

The NUJ are ramping up for the arrival of Lord Hall as Director General of the BBC. Their current mandate for calling a strike (over compulsory redundancies) runs out in March. How they wish that might extend to 2 April - Tone's first day.

The union says there are worries about possible compulsory redundancies in Scotland (9 still to be settled), Newsbeat, Five Live, staff on the Big Screens, Asian Network and the World Service.  Currently, the BBC is advertising at least six jobs for journalists externally; presumably there are more only visible to insiders.

Meanwhile BBC HR supremo Lucy Adams will be organising another re-training course for her team of advisers (vacancies there, too - "never has there been a more exciting time to be in HR at the BBC"). The BBC has lost an industrial tribunal brought by the NUJ against the compulsory dismissal of  Russell Maddicks, a Latin American specialist at the Monitoring Service in Caversham, run by Dr Chris Westcott. The judgement notes that Russell's internal appeal against the sack, conducted by the Doctor (and, one presumes, an HR helper) "started without the claimant and his representative having all the documentation they had asked for. Rather than allow the claimant to present his argument he asked a series of questions. He undertook an investigation after the meeting had concluded without giving the claimant the opportunity of hearing what his investigation had revealed and responding. The fact the BBC routinely conducts appeals in that way it does not make it reasonable in the circumstances of this case".