Perhaps too much transparency in this refusal of a Freedom of Information enquiry, because it would take too long to read 1,810 emails which might reveal details of the internal debate about paying Huw Edwards after senior BBC executives knew about his arrest.....
Question 3 of your request asked for ‘any internal communications where it was debated
whether or not to pay Edwards’. We asked BBC Information Security to carry searches of
relevant mailboxes using keywords such as ‘Huw’ and ‘salary’ in the time period from 1 November 2023 until Huw Edwards resigned from the BBC. This search has returned 1,810
returns, after de-duplication. Not all of these items will be relevant to what you have
specifically asked about – internal discussions where it was debated whether or not to pay
Huw Edwards. Each of these items would need to be reviewed to establish whether or not
they are within the scope of what you have asked. Taking a conservative estimate of 1 minute per item, this would take over 30 hours to review. This would exceed the appropriate time limit under the FOI Act.
whether or not to pay Edwards’. We asked BBC Information Security to carry searches of
relevant mailboxes using keywords such as ‘Huw’ and ‘salary’ in the time period from 1 November 2023 until Huw Edwards resigned from the BBC. This search has returned 1,810
returns, after de-duplication. Not all of these items will be relevant to what you have
specifically asked about – internal discussions where it was debated whether or not to pay
Huw Edwards. Each of these items would need to be reviewed to establish whether or not
they are within the scope of what you have asked. Taking a conservative estimate of 1 minute per item, this would take over 30 hours to review. This would exceed the appropriate time limit under the FOI Act.
Sorry, I don't share the outrage about whether Edwards was still being paid after his arrest. There's legal dispute about whether being charged with an offence counts as an ‘unavoidable impediment’ to being able to work. If it does, and there are no specific clauses in the employment contract about it, it falls into the same category as being sick, and employers can't dock wages.
ReplyDeleteI think we're in danger of being blinded by the particularly repugnant nature of Edwards' offences, and one of the things we might be blinded to is that his employer is trying very hard to recover reputation lost because it once again harboured a sex offender for years, having declared its internal culture had changed.
Hard cases make bad law, and the same must surely apply to HR policy: we need to consider what might happen to an ordinary employee, suspended for months while on remand awaiting trial, who is acquitted but has in the meantime lost their home. Arrest does not equate to guilt.
It would be awful if one of the further side-effects of a too-well-paid presenter's offences was that ordinary employees find themselves up to their necks in debt because their employer wished to slam a stable door hard and very audibly, long after a very wealthy - and unimprisoned - horse had bolted. We should direct our outrage at Edwards himself, and his employer if it turns out they did less than they could have to follow up warnings of his conduct. Hunting down the money is a sideshow, and could have unintended consequences.