Costs

The Sunday Times (paywall) reveals that John Linwood's solicitors offered to settle his unfair dismissal case against the BBC for £50k plus an admission that it was unfair, six weeks before the hearing in May.

Now the BBC could be liable for a capped settlement of £76,574, plus something to cover lack of notice for his sacking.

But the BBC's total costs for the exercise will dwarf that. They chose Olswang as solicitors, and Daniel Stilitz as barrister. The agreed bundle of documents totalled 6,000 pages - imagine the poor photocopier. The BBC provided eight witnesses, all of whom will have been put through their paces by BBC HR and lawyers before final prep by Stilitz, all on call until their turn in 20-odd days of hearing. Say it disrupted them for a month - the monthly salaries of the six whose remuneration is public total over £100k. There will have been a comms team managing the days at the tribunal, and doubtless a small fleet of taxis.

The real damage is reputational. A document currently being circulated to BBC staff contains the line "A BBC manager is a role model for all our values".