We're working on it

The well-connected Alex Farber in The Times tells us the BBC will respond to the current pile-in on Monday.  I'm afraid that suggests they're still working on the right answers. The biggest problem is that both Chair Samir Shah and Director General Tim Davie has been sitting on the Editorial Standards sub-committee of the Board since they were appointed to their current roles - and have clearly never reconciled themselves to the criticisms of Michael Prescott. 

There is no higher internal advice Tim can turn to. The steady hand of Sir Nick Serota as senior non-executive has gone; solid press adviser John Shield has gone. Tim himself drove through the appointment of Deborah Turness (replacing BBC lifer Fran Unsworth) who got more money, and asked for the title CEO. She's been a member of the BBC Board since September 2022. 

PR now is supervised by Alice McAndrew.  She has just appointed Lisa Hunter, a former Deputy CEO of the Government Communications Service, as head of External Communications - in post just this month.  

The current internal fixer is Peter Johnston, once Controller Northern Ireland.  David Jordan has been running Editorial Policy for 20 years, and finds time to be Secretary General of Public Broadcasters' International, on the Executive Board of the Organisation of News Ombudsmen and the Board of the International Press Institute, a Board Trustee of the BBC Pension Scheme and a member of the U.K.’s Defence, Security and Media Advisory Committee (DSMA). Perhaps too busy to appease Mr Prescott.