Our mutual friends

The whiff of mutualisation is in the air.  The word got one mention in the Michael Grade/Mark Thompson paper of the 2004 bid for BBC Charter Renewal, called Building Public Value. They dismissed it, but it came back in 2013, as a solution proposed by Tessa Jowell to perceived poor performance by the BBC Trust. She wrote: 

"One big step it could take would be to mutualise the BBC, to make its ownership and governance beyond doubt. Each licence fee payer would be a shareholder in the BBC, and no bandit raid by a secretary of state would be possible on its content, funding or structure. As one of our most treasured and important public institutions, the principles of mutualism – democratic ownership, solidarity and equity – would fit perfectly with the BBC's editorial remit of impartiality, transparency and accountability.

Mutualising the BBC would strengthen the trust's hand in relation to the executive and give the organised voice of its licence fee paying shareholders more of a say over programmes and direction. It might also help to underline the challenges in generating good quality output in an age where so much content can be produced for free. By electing all or a majority of the trustees by the members, the autonomy of the BBC and its independence from government and external pressures would be better safeguarded. It is a simple principle that if we pay for the BBC, the institution should be more accountable to us."

It was written from Tessa's background as Culture Secretary (2001-2007), and Olympics Minister (2005-2010).  Tessa gave birth to the BBC Trust, after arguments about the behaviour of the BBC Governors, post-Hutton/Gilligan.  A new BBC Royal Charter and Agreement was published in December 2016, which made Ofcom, not the BBC Trust, the independent regulator of the BBC, and the BBC moved to a board of non-executives and executives. 

Some of this new interest in the idea of mutualisation comes from the fact that new Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Tessa Jowell from 2010 to 2012.  When she ran for the Labour leadership in 2020, Lisa told a hustings meeting :“You’ve also got to actually ask yourself who owns the media and who runs it? I’d like to see us mutualise the BBC so that those decisions are taken by a wider group of people. I’d like to see us not just move the headquarters of Channel 4 and the BBC out of London but commissioning power too, so what gets made and what gets said is not determined by a small group of men behind a desk in Westminster and Whitehall.”

A petition for mutualisation in 2013 got nine votes. In 2016, Labour MP Gareth Thomas and Tory MP Steve Baker re-floated the idea. Alan Rusbridger was on about it in January this year. 

It's a distraction. Making licence-fee holders 'members' doesn't deal with the compulsory nature of the payment, or make the tax less regressive; and it's hard to believe that members could or would be allowed set the licence-fee, any more than John Lewis employees vote on the prices of three-piece sofas. Purpose, governance and funding need to be solidly linked, ideally set by a truly independent body.  And establishing that body is the real problem.