Effortless

The normally-tame EBU annual conference called News Exchange hit some publicity blowback when it invited Steve Bannan for an interview session in Edinburgh back in November. A Freedom of Information enquiry asked for details of the cost of the conference to the BBC as 'co-host'.

The BBC responded that there was "no financial commitment", but that "The EBU asks co-hosts to supply a limited number of staff and equipment to help produce and film the conference." The BBC said it would take too long to calculate a cash value for this effort.

The questioner asked for an internal review, and has gleaned this further info... 

News has advised that there was  no  set,  overarching  ‘commitment’  in  terms  of  total  staff  hours  and  value  in-kind  that  the BBC  would  provide  as  a  co-host  of  News  Xchange  in  2018.  Being  a  major  international conference  held  over  two  days  with  multiple  speakers,  a  wide  variety  of  planning  and coordination tasks were required to be carried out leading up to the event and the BBC also provided  technical  support  and  equipment  during  the  event.  As  provided  in  the  BBC’s initial response, the BBC did not make any financial contributions to the event. 

News has advised that the resources for the planning and coordination of the conference were 
pooled from a small number of BBC News staff throughout the year. In particular, these staff 
undertook various planning tasks from the beginning of 2018 alongside their usual duties at the 
BBC. A small number of personnel from BBC Scotland also undertook various planning tasks. 
The majority of work was undertaken on an ad hoc basis as and when a need arose, and some 
work, such as a short weekly call, was carried out on a routine basis.  

News  has  advised  that  closer  to  the  event  date,  there  were  two  dedicated  secondments  to 
assist  with  planning  and  coordination  activities  for  News  Xchange.  News  has  volunteered  the 
following information about these secondments:  
  One Assistant Editor (Chris Gibson) was seconded from News to work as an Executive 
Producer for News Xchange on a full-time basis for a period of 3 months.  
  Another  BBC  employee  was  seconded  to  work  as  the  Production  Coordinator  on  a 
part-time basis (2.5 days a week) for a period of 3 months.  

In  addition,  another  individual  based  locally  in  Edinburgh  provided  assistance  throughout  the 
year on an ad hoc basis, as and when a need arose to organise and coordinate tasks locally.  

Given the above, the specific information that you have requested for an estimate of the ‘hours 
and value of staff time that the BBC has committed to this event’ is not held as recorded information 
and  can  only  be  worked  out  by  contacting  each  BBC  employee  that  assisted  with  the  event 
throughout  the  year  and  retrospectively  determining  the  amount  of  time  for  their  work  on 
News Xchange, separately from their usual duties. As mentioned above, a public authority is not 
required  to  create  new  information  to  respond  to  an  FOI  request.