No record

The BBC, already placed on the naughty step by the Information Commissioner's Office, says it can't answer this question in less than two and half days - so it won't.

How many direct appointments of external candidates were made in BBC Network News (including all central, direction, leadership and talent roles irrespective of contract type) between 1 April 2013 and 1 July 2014 ?

By way of explanation...

There is no central record for requests for direct appointments to be approved and therefore, to provide you with information relating to appointments without competition, we would need to cross-check each new appointment recorded on the HR database during the period with the recruitment system to see whether they had been advertised or not. We would then need to check with the relevant manager to confirm whether the appointment was without competition and the additional information you have requested. As this relates to c700 new staff in News, we estimate to carry out this search will take BBC staff more than two and a half days.

A scan of outstanding or delayed requests to the BBC on What Do They Know? suggests the six month ICO review of the BBC's performance, due any day now, won't be good news for Lord Hall.

• 1030 Update: Never Wrong For Long Dept: The BBC is off the naughty step. The six-month ICO review found that Auntie answered 95% of FOI requests within the statutory deadline of 20 working days. Perhaps those posted via What Do They Know? are particularly tricky and make up less than 5%.