"Scandalous"

The FT has decided that Mark Thompson is largely to blame for non-contractual severance payments at the BBC. (Was FT Editor Lionel Barber ever really a candidate to replace him ?)

The FT discourages clipping, but I'll risk this engaging bit as it's an editorial, and thus debate, not reporting (and, joy of joys, there's a spelling mistake):  During [Thommo's] time at the helm, which straddled the pre-crisis boom, the BBC became notorious for handing out fat salaries to a top-heavy tier of senior managers. This did little for programme quality but cost the BBC dear in terms of public credibility. For Mr Thompson to have sanctioned top-up payments to this overpaid and supernumary [sic] caste is scandalous, even if the Trust approved them as he claims.

The editorial offers solutions, saying the BBC should stop the DG acting as both CEO and Chairman of Executive Board - an external chair, even the chair of The Trust, would be preferable.

It wants more access for the National Audit Office. I think this is a distraction. The NAO would end up with an entire, parallel audit team to keep their fretting minds happy. The BBC books and financial reporting simply need to be delivered in plain English - transparent facts, without the endless gloss of triumph and the need for specialist interpretation to find out what's really going on. Let's see the style of this year's Annual Report, coming on Tuesday. I think things will change next year under Anne Bulford.

And finally the FT wants the Trust "beefed up" or the role handed to Ofcom. The Trust is certainly "beefy" in terms of process - its editorial reviews are more lawyerly than Queen's Bench reports - but it has seemed to lack "savvy" about the business it monitors. When it has got things right - on senior manager numbers, and pay levels in general - whimpering on the sidelines saying they won't do what we tell them is hardly what we want from regulators.