4%

All initiatives to improve diversity of employment on and off screen at the BBC are welcome. And obviously, it's good sense to set targets that are achievable.

In January last year, Acting DG Tim Davie published the last big diversity report. Auntie had already recognised the problem of getting black and Asian minority ethnic recruits into senior management. So a new target area was constructed, of "senior level management", which included staff on Grade 10, Grade 11, as well as the real Senior Management grades, SM2 and SM1. 7% was to achieved by 2012 - and in September that year, it stood at 6.5%.  Tim set a new target of 10%, to be achieved by 2017.

Lord Hall's announcement seems to vary the reporting group again, talking about "grade 10 to SM1... in the most relevant areas of TV and Radio Production, Broadcast Journalism and Commissioning and Scheduling."  He says it's currently 8.3%, and he's added a stretch target beyond the 10% by 2017 - aiming for 15% by 2020.

Of course, when reporting "senior management" to MPs and the Mail, the numbers are restricted to SM2 and SM1 grades (though the growth in Band 11 jobs over the past five years has not gone unnoticed).

I think it'll be interesting to monitor the diversity of those BBC employees who are in real "leadership" positions - such that, for the glory of the job, they have to agree to have their salaries and expenses published.

They are exactly 100 on the current list. I can't find photos for Kieran Clifton (Mr Marina Hyde), Rachel Currie, Richard Payne, Gautam Rangarajan, John Turner and Cary Wakefield, but am prepared to take a wild guess that only one might bother the BAME Diversity Jury.  And thus I estimate a total of 4 out of 100 as we stand.

• One of Tim Davie's SMART objectives was to get the BBC listed in Stonewall's Top 100 gay friendly employers chart by December 2013.  Can't find them in the list for 2013, or 2014.

Timing

The BBC will produce another initiative-rich showcase before next Thursday - on diversity.

Next Thursday, the Culture Select Committee, as part of its series on the future of the BBC, holds a session with Lenny Henry as the lead witness. Lord Hall needs to have made him happy by then.

Lettuce

Sometimes you need the strong words and help of outsiders to change things. Equality consultant Jean Farrell was on a panel at the BBC yesterday headlined entitled "The Road to 50% Women in Leadership", and many of the participants had been part of her Women's Development Initiative 15 years ago.

'In my view you can't be a good leader unless you can show real competence around diversity and inclusion, and those who don't should pay the price. There should be no difference between failing to deliver on budget and failing to meet diversity targets. But it's all flopsy bunny when it comes to diversity.'

Amanda Rice, Head of Diversity, also offered a pointed remark "Digital and Strategy is an incredibly important division in terms of shaping the BBC, but all the people at the top of that division are male". Not quite true: James Purnell is Director of Digital & Strategy, and he has one woman on his board - Natasha Adams from HR. Nonetheless, let's see what happens to Jim's £295k salary next year.

• Today is HR Director Lucy Adams' last day in the office - she's on leave till the end of the financial year. She announced her decision to leave six months ago, and there's no sign yet of a replacement. Who's in charge of recruitment, eh ?

Mover

The BBC is having a week of internal events, speeches and workshops on diversity, entitled Reflect and Represent. I was intrigued to read that one session, 'Let's Talk About Class' will be led by "BBC Social Mobility Executive" Cheryl Varley. Last year Cheryl was a mere Talent Development Manager, and has been going a grand job mentoring BBC apprentices from all walks of life.

Cheryl's experience stretches back to days as a Labour member in Liverpool when she was expelled by the NEC after writing three articles for the Mersey Militant newspaper. Despite that, she went on to be elected as a national further education rep in the National Union Of Students.

In 2000, she had a small role in the semi-improvised Liverpool gangster drama, Shooters, in which she played "Big John's Ex".  She's been an assistant producer on The Real Story in Manchester, and on at least two editions of Panorama. Could be a good session...

Dangerous waters

...and, just a day after Danny Cohen asks presenters to discuss BBC problems inside the BBC, here's a pretty angry Dotun Adebayo, one of the hosts of Radio 5 Live's Up All Night, with a Sunday show on Radio London, a blogger for The Voice, and contributor to The Guardian...

James Harding: "BBC must tackle diversity problem". LIP SERVICE? Start in your news dept, where Africans drown from not being able to swim
— dotun adebayo (@dotunadebayo) December 5, 2013

Big man

There will be those in Broadcasting House who might raise eyebrows at this interview given by cuddly Mark Lawson to the York University student paper The Yorker. Particularly this bit.

"Having a daughter and virtually all female producers, I think the big challenge for feminism now is that you can change ideology, as we have, but it’s much harder to change biology. Fathering a child and giving birth to a child are different things in terms of the physical and emotional impact. And perhaps that shouldn’t be the case, but it still is. I’ve seen a number of very brilliant women who naturally should go onto be Director General of the BBC, but I’ve seen this crisis played out when they have children and say ‘well do I still want this?’, and that doesn’t happen with men. It is very complicated."

Neiling

The curate's egg comedy slot on Radio 4 at 6.30 last night saw the return of comedy impression show Secret World for a fourth series. Its heritage runs clearly from DeadRingers, which lionised newseader Brian Perkins as The Godfather.

The Secret World team have now lighted upon R4 announcer Neil Nunes, and had some fun as he offered to "turn up his diversity" whilst renewing his contract at Broadcasting House. Edgier stuff in real life than establishing Perkins as a contract killer. Nunes' posh Jamaican accent has irritated some listeners; and Radio 4 is still struggling with diversity, at the microphone and in production offices. Will he be a regular feature of Secret World, and where will the gags take us ?

Objective or not ?

Plain-speaking David Holdsworth, custodian of BBC local radio, has acquired a writing style of some elegance for a piece lurking in the "Women in Leadership" of the Guardian Professional Section.

In it he makes it clear that Lord Hall's ambition to reach a figure of  50% female presentation of local radio breakfast shows by the end of 2014 is just that, and not a target.

It's important to stress that this is an aspiration, not a quota; aside from concerns of unfairness, a quota would undermine the credibility of every great female presenter we appointed. 

This aspiration makes perfect sense to us. BBC Local Radio has around 600 presenters, which is more than all the BBC main radio networks, the services for the devolved nations and the English language World Service combined. 

So a positive change to representation on local radio makes a significant impact on the whole industry. With so many great national broadcasters starting out in our stations, it also means that changes we make now will shape the voices we all hear on national radio in five and ten years' time. 

Being the focus of attention on this issue is no stigma; rather it acknowledges our significance and that we have a role to play in leading a change that should eventually happen everywhere in radio.

All very sensible. But then a revelation. Clearly, when half of our staff are women, it's not right that just a quarter of the hours we transmit feature female presenters. We can and must do better.

I think if I were a pressure group, say, like Sound Women, I'd want more figures from Mr Holdsworth. A baseline of the current gender balance of all 600 local radio presenters, so that we can genuinely say that more women have been recruited, rather than shuffled round the schedules. I may need a bigger grid.

Early bird

Emma Britton is the first new female recruit to a BBC Local Radio breakfast show since the Tony Hall Quota ("It's a target" - Alan Yentob) was set.

Emma, pictured here on a Radio Somerset OB in Frome last week, moves from mid-morning to the slot on September 9; current presenter Matt Faulkner moves to drivetime, and drivetime's Ben McGrail moves to mid-morning. A gavotte, with no new female talent recruited, but, heigh-ho, job done.

Home county

Alice Arnold, former Radio 4 announcer, has come out in favour of the Tony Hall Quota for Gender Balance of BBC Local Radio Breakfast Hosts. Here's an extract from her essay in The Telegraph.

I spent a little time with the management of local radio just before I left the BBC. I loved what I saw. An intelligent, largely young workforce who cared deeply about what they did. A lack of resources (and believe me they are run on a shoestring) means that everyone does everything. Their skills were as impressive as their commitment. 

As it happens the management executives at BBC Berkshire (where I was) were ahead of the game when it came to promoting and encouraging female voices on the network. But now there are no excuses. The directive has come right from the very top. All those in middle management, of which there are many, will have to take action. They will have to seek out women for the top jobs in radio.

It's good to know Berkshire can afford executives in the plural. Today's schedule offers Steve Madden (John Hudson sitting in) Andrew Peach, Anne Diamond (local talent Tony Blackburn sitting in), Mike Read, Phil Kennedy (local talent Paul Coia sitting in), before the local radio network comes together for the England-wide Mark Forrest Show (Gregory Spanswick sitting in). Then the schedule invites you to "go to bed with Paul Miller and put a smile on your face" (shared with BBC Solent, Sussex and Surrey). Way to go, Berks.

Heated debate

The heated debate about the gender balance target for presentation of BBC local radio breakfast shows, set to be achieved by the end of 2014, has started.

This from a blog by David Lloyd, currently Director of Marketing and Planning for Orion, which runs the "Free Radio" cluster in the Midlands..

I don't count the number of audition MP3s and Soundcloud files I get sent each week, but I would hazard a guess that well over 90% of unsolicited auditions come from lads. When more high quality auditions are submitted by women, more will be recruited. And we programmers must not nurture that irrational fear of two successive women on a programme schedule. 

Is it appropriate to engineer a 50% ratio of women on BBC Local Radio breakfast programmes by the end of 2014? I would question that tactic; although I welcome a strategy. 

Is it correct to aim for a better gender balance and benchmark how the situation evolves over time? Absolutely.

This is from John Myers's blog. John currently consults and "professes" on radio.

If Tony Hall had said that women in key presenting roles is an important goal (which it is) and urged management to create the right environment for it to occur, then he would be applauded. Instead, he’s confused everyone. He demands a quota. Wow. I’m guessing then that some very experienced men are going to have to walk the plank to create these vacancies. There can’t be more cash, they’ve just take a shedload from them. The only reason for being fired guys is that you’re unlucky. You were born a man. Boy, if this was me, I would have them tied up in lawyers for months.

And there's this from BBC Controller English Regions, David Holdsworth - the man who has to reach the target.

Finding new and diverse voices is a challenge we relish and is fundamental to the role of local radio. Work is already underway to better reflect the communities we serve. A series of initiatives have been launched to widen the way BBC Local Radio searches for and identifies talented presenters while, at the same time, seeking to address any challenges that women may face in this area.

Carina Tillson, of the pressure group Sound Women, currently working on compeition policy at Ofcom:

We’re thrilled that this issue is being considered at the highest levels of the BBC. Whilst women are well represented in some areas of the industry, they are not well represented on air – our recent research report, Sound Women on Air, found that women comprise just 1 in 8 voices on air at breakfast. 

Having women’s voices on-air is hugely important, both to female radio audiences and to aspiring female presenters.

Breakfast menu

I hope Lucy Adams, BBC HR chief, has set up a caring-sharing-helpline for concerned middle-aged male local radio Breakfast presenters. They'll be spending the weekend checking their contracts, pensions, AVCs and mortgage statements and phoning station managers to demand Monday meetings, as Lord Hall sets a target for 50% female presentation across 40 or so local radio breakfast programmes by the end of 2014.

There is, often, an easy way to do this - many shows have women as newsreaders, travel, weather, and even sport presenters. They could just be added to the billings - but, if they're sensible, equal billing means equal pay, and I wonder if local radio has been given a budget to do this. Other stations could rotate capable women from elsewhere in the schedule to breakfast slots - but that, honestly, doesn't do much to ease the overall diversity problem.

From the way they're billed on iPlayer today, around 30 stations need to think about change (I accept it's a snapshot, doesn't cover some opt-out shows, and a may feature holiday relief presenters or Friday stand-ins). While we're on about diversity, the photos below suggest 2 ethnic minority presenters out of 52.

Aim

There's a clear focus on senior managers in the BBC's new diversity targets, revealed in the Annual Report. The old target for "Black and Minority Ethnic" managers, set under Mark Thompson, was 7%, to be reached by December 2012. That was missed, by 0.1%.  The new target, to be reached by the end of 2017 is 10% (of the "wider senior leadership group").  Recent departures include Zarin Patel, Pat Younge and Sanjay Nazerali...

The disabled target for all staff was 5.5% by December 2012, and as this blog has been pointing out, that was a bigger miss - 3.8% achieved. So the overall target for 2017 has actually been lowered, to 5.4% - but the stretch is for senior managers - 10% of that "senior leadership group" - from a current base of around 3.2%.  

Waving

A couple of uncoded references to "leadership" in this comment about gender balance now at the BBC, from Dame Jenny Abramsky. Jenny was at the BBC from 1969 to 2008, and Tony Hall's first spell ran from 1973 to 2001.

Opportunity knocks

Talented women - apply for any and all BBC jobs now; the odds are massively in your favour. Lord Hall has appointed just one woman, Anne Bulford, to replace another woman, Zarin Patel, and moved Helen Boaden sideways. Since then we've seen promotions for Danny Cohen, Roger Mosey; an enhanced role for Peter Salmon; James Harding in at News, and blokes to run Newsnight and Today.

Details of James Purnell's management structure in Strategy and Digital (in a pdf straight out of Mad Men) show some 41 key posts, of which 13 are filled by women - and many of them seem to have "business management" in their titles.

The charts also reveal that former Comms boss and hardy swimmer Paul Mylrea is still with Auntie, contrary to previous reports, and in charge of something called the BBC Stakeholder Engagement Plan.

Targets

The departure of Richard Klein  from BBC4 for the factual department of ITV offers Danny Cohen the chance to improve the gender balance of the Vision top team. Janice Hadlow is currently minding 4 as well as her own  BBC2; Charlotte Moore is minding One with a spring in her stride, and now has two slots for which to pitch.

It may take longer for Lord Hall to improve things at the BBC Management Board (which meets three times a  month, not weekly, as I previously asserted). Currently, three women are members out of a total of 16 - of them, only Helen Boaden is from an output department. And ethnic diversity will almost disappear when Zarin Patel departs... I'm guessing Ralph Rivera has Puerto Rican heritage.

Too low

"BBC [Tele] Vision is the biggest integrated multimedia broadcast and production group in the world".

But, it seems, not awfully well integrated. Here's a Freedom of Information request, and part of the answer. I'm guessing BBC [Tele]Vision has just under 1,700 staff on its books.

Questions

1.  “How many African-Caribbean males did the BBC Vision employ on 31st December 2012, or on 
the date of the last count (whichever is the most recent date)? 

2.  A breakdown of how many African-Caribbean male staff there are in: 

a.  BBC Vision are in bands SM1 and SM2;
b.  BBC Vision are in grades 2 to 11, including 7L. 

Response to Questions 1 and 2 

The BBC does not record information on the ethnicity of staff using the classification ‘African-
Caribbean’ as per your request, however under the heading ‘Black and Minority Ethnic’ (heading 2, as 
explained above), we collect information on those employees who are Black African and Black 
Caribbean as well as mixed ethnicity categories which include White & Black African and White & 
Black Caribbean.  We have looked at staff in these 4 categories in order to obtain information 
relevant to your request. 

In relation to questions 1 and 2, we are withholding the information held by the BBC about staff in 
the 4 categories identified above under section 40(2) of the Act.  As the response relates to a small 
number of staff, this could lead to individuals being identified.  Personal information about living 
individuals is exempt if disclosure to a third party would breach one or more principles of the Data 
Protection Act 1998.  The individuals concerned would not expect personal details relating to their 
ethnicity to be disclosed.  To do so would be unfair; therefore, disclosure would breach the First Data 
Protection Principle, fair and lawful processing.  

Help with schedules

Maria Miller was tipped for Health and Wales before ending up at the DCMS.  Her first weeks saw some unpleasant tasks - issuing warning of redundancy notices to all her new staff (headed "Your Future") as the Department moves to closure on Jeremy Hunt's cuts plans. 80 civil servants need to volunteer to go by the end of the financial year, otherwise a process of selection-for-retention comes into play. Last year 67 chose an early exit, costing the redundancy pot £3.2m, with an average pay-off of £48,500.

Over three years, the DCMS will have reduced from 590 staff to around 330 (and some of those will be on short-term contracts). And from next year, those 330 move from their remaining three floors of Cockspur Street, away from the 158 Scottish malts in the Whisky Bar of The Albannach opposite, and the DCMS performance space of Trafalgar Square, to the duller surroundings of 100 Parliament Street, opposite the Mitchell Gate to Downing Street. No such cuts in Maria's other department, the Government Equalities Office, where staffing stays at 80 - but an irritating stroll for Maria to the glass factory of Victoria's Eland House, shared with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and Eric Pickles' Communities and Local Government.

Still Maria can have some fun this week - with BBC Chairman Lord Patten and his batman George on parade for a first official meeting. She gave early notice that she expects more tv coverage, and fast, of women's sports.  Space has been created, on daytime BBC2.  Will Barbara Slater have provided the Good Lord with a list sufficient to avoid a talking-to ? And how will the diversity discussion go for George ?  

Where are they now ?

BBC DG George Entwistle has trimmed the old, second tier, Direction Group in Auntie's organogram, and invented the leaner Management Board. Some of the losers in this process have appeared as direct reports to George, but the detail on others has not been made public.

Those losing their seats at the table include Creative Director Alan Yentob and Pat Younge, Chief Creative Officer, Vision. Roly Keating, heading Archive, has already left for The British Libray. Jessica Cecil, head of the DG's Office when Thommo was here, has new responsibilities for a faster-track complaints handling process. Sarah Jones looks after legal matters. Paul Mylrea runs Communications. John Tate runs strategy and chairs BBC Studios. Bal Samra also boasts two titles: Director, Vision Operations,and Director, Rights & Business Affairs BBC.

Another big cheese missing from the new Management Group is Chief Technical Officer John Linwood. Ralph Rivera sits on the Executive, as Director of Future Media, but the perception has always been that he leaves hardware and big systems to Mr Linwood. Is he still active ? Who speaks for technology at the top table now ?

We've banged on a bit about George's diversity problems, on and off screen. We'd like to remind him that, when Zarin Patel leaves in the next year, he'll have no UK ethnic minority representation on his two top boards, unless things change.

In praise of...

Ah, the left and right hands of the BBC.  Mark Thompson (and the BBC News Channel) spend two years on finding roles and programmes for older women. Julia Somerville, Fiona Armstrong and Carole Walker get odd shifts; Julia replaces Jenny Bond on Rip-off Britain; Danny Cohen tries to help with a series called "When I'm 65".

Meanwhile, at Broadcasting House, a "call for volunteers" means Harriet Cass, 60 and Charlotte Green, 56 get a redundancy deal, as Radio 4 cuts its pool of continuity announcers and newsreaders from 12 to 10; and, at Radio 2, pooling its newsreaders with 6Music, Fran Godfrey, 59, and Fenella Fudge (ageless) are among those on the way out.

Meanwhile, Caroline Thomson, Director General Manque, is back, with new bins and a light tan, and speaking pointedly about the role of women on boards in an Evening Standard debate. She notes that, from previous balance checks, the BBC's executive is now down to "42%" female; and that men are running BBC Audio & Music, BBC Vision, BBC1 and Radio 2. And, a tad hurriedly, she says they got their jobs on merit.

• The concept of a pool of continuity announcers and newsreaders at Radio 4 is interesting to many seasoned observers. Within that pool, there are some who never make it to key bulletins on Today and at 6 O'Clock. In the past, some possible combinations of newsreaders and presenters just never seemed to happen, as if, heaven forfend, some sort of ban was in place...

• Fenella Fudge has a racehorse named after her. She's also available for voice-overs, with the following calling card: "Mid-range to deep natural RP. Extremely versatile: from warm and authoritative to sexy to cartoon voices and dog impressions (vocal only) - vast range of accents. Takes direction well (although "GET OUT" is liable to offend)".