Concerns timing of appointment of panel to advise on charter review suggests ministers have already decided to mount ‘fundamental attack on scope of BBC’

The government will publish a green paper this week setting out the details of a fundamental review of the BBC, signalling the next stage in the political battle over the broadcaster’s future size and funding.

The “root and branch” review of the BBC charter, which will be unveiled by the culture secretary, John Whittingdale, examines whether the BBC has been chasing mass ratings at the expense of its original public service brief. Whittingdale believes the BBC is breaching its charter principles by claiming it needs to go after 90% of viewers.



Whittingdale will be advised by a panel of experts, including former Channel 5 chair and chief executive Dawn Airey, some of whom have been critical of the corporation in the past.

The review comes after the BBC last week won a commitment in principle to retain the licence fee as the chief means of funding the corporation for at least another five years.

However, as part of George Osborne’s summer budget, the broadcaster is to be forced to take on the cost of free licences for the over-75s. In return for the BBC taking on that cost, which is currently borne by the taxpayer, the government has confirmed that the licence fee funding mechanism would be retained until 2020 at least.

BBC to take on £750m cost of subsidy for over-75s in licence fee deal Read more

Last week, Whittingdale also made a commitment to allow the licence fee – frozen at £145.50 a year since 2010 – to rise in line with inflation, as measured by the consumer prices index. CPI rose by 0.1% in the year to May 2015.

But a CPI-linked licence fee is dependent on whether the review of the BBC charter concludes that the corporation should broadly continue with its existing remit and scope and undertakes efficiency savings at least equivalent to those across the public sector.

The BBC’s existing charter, which is negotiated with the government every 10 years, runs out at the end of 2016.

Government sources said the issue of the licence fee had probably been broadly settled but that the future size of the BBC might have an impact on how fast the fee continued to rise, or indeed whether it should be scrapped after 2020 and funded through a household tax or charges for subscription services.

The green paper will explore those alternative funding methods. It will also suggest that the BBC website should be scaled back, a point raised in the past by Osborne. The chancellor has been concerned that the breadth of the free-to-use BBC website destroys the competition in regional newspapers. The BBC is now offering to be a site for local news bloggers.

The charter review will look at the political impartiality of the BBC news coverage and will question whether the corporation’s news fulfils its obligation to be impartial. It will also examine whether more of the broadcaster’s output should be independently produced and will consider the future of BBC Worldwide – the corporation’s commercial arm. The review is almost certain to recommend scrapping the BBC Trust, arguing that the oversight body should not be housed within the corporation.

Sajid Javid, the business secretary and former culture secretary, told BBC 1’s Andrew Marr Show: “The reforms introduced last week were not dissimilar to the review in 2010 about how much the BBC could absorb within its own income.

“The review would look at issues such as the BBC’s internet capabilities. The review will need to take into account feedback from all stakeholders.”

Javid refused to be drawn on whether he wanted a smaller BBC, while Downing Street sources said the key was to drive up quality.

The shadow education secretary, Tristam Hunt, speaking on the same show, described the review as an unpatriotic attack on what he said was a “great British institution”.

A senior BBC source said: “Let’s see what the green paper says, but the BBC doesn’t nakedly chase viewers, but we do seek to make the good popular, and the popular good. Research has shown that an element of competition drives up quality across the industry. The voice of the public will be key and they will have their own view about the merits of BBC programmes like Strictly and Sherlock.

“In a world where broadcasting is increasingly global, it is important for Britain that we have a strong, vibrant and successful creative sector and the BBC has been a key driver of delivering that. A key test for the green paper is whether it enhances or diminishes that status. The BBC is a British global success story. If we get this wrong, in 10 years’ time it will no longer be.”

The expert panel is part of plans to deliver a transparent open and democratic BBC charter review, the government said. Those on the panel are to bring their personal experience and and expertise on policy debates to bear.

As well as Airey, now senior vice-president of Yahoo business in Europe and the Middle East, the panel includes Dame Colette Bowe, the former chairwoman of the regulator Ofcom.

Airey has previously called for the licence fee to be cut and for the BBC to consider charging for its online output. Charging for output was extended in principle when the broadcaster was granted the right to charge for use of its BBC iPlayer service via a licence fee as part of last week’s funding deal. The BBC has been losing income as more viewers use the iPlayer service to watch recorded output, freeing them from obligation to pay the licence fee.

Bowe, in a speech before she stepped down from her Ofcom role this year, said she had sympathy with the idea of making some BBC licence fee money “contestable”, with other media companies allowed to bid to make public service broadcasting programming.

Whittingdale defended the composure of the panel: “Each member of the independent advisory group brings individual skills, experience and expertise. Together they will contribute to the oversight of the government’s review of the BBC royal charter. I look forward to working with them on this important issue.”

The panel will meet at least six times and send advice to ministers, but will not take policy decisions on behalf of government.

Its other members are: Andrew Fisher, chief executive of music service Shazam; Darren Henley, chief executive of Arts Council England and managing director of Classic FM; Ashley Highfield, chief executive of regional newspaper group Johnston Press and a former BBC director of new media and technology; Alex Mahon, former chief executive of MasterChef and Broadchurch producer Shine Group; digital entrepreneur Lopa Patel; and Stewart Purvis, a former chief executive and editor-in-chief of ITN.

The former acting chair of the BBC Trust Diane Coyle said the government’s decision to appoint the panel before announcing plans to consult the public suggested it had already decided to mount a “fundamental attack on the scope of the BBC”.

Seh added: “One of the really odd things about this is that nobody appears to be talking about how to involve the public. You wonder whether it’s because they’ve already announced their own minds before consultation has taken place.

“It’s very hard to avoid the suspicion that this is a fundamental attack on the scope of the BBC. If not the government should move very quickly to allay that impression.”

Coyle called on the government to make sure it consulted a wide variety of stakeholders from the creative sector, including the music industry and smaller independent producers.

She added: “Anybody oversees finds it inexplicable that we have this amazing national assert and it seems to be constantly under attack from the government and the rest of the industry.

“It’s absolutely gobsmacking to those who look with envy at the health and quality of the British sector and the amazing things the BBC does to the reputation of the UK as a whole. It seems public interest is the last thing to get a look in in this debate.”

The BBC director general, Tony Hall, put a brave face on last week’s funding deal, saying it gave the corporation “financial stability and the ability to plan for the future”.

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But writing in the Observer on Sunday, he said the negotiation process should not happen again.

“Although the BBC used this pre-budget window of opportunity to reach a fair deal, it is not a process we would have chosen and it is not a process that should be repeated,” he wrote.

Hall said he believed that the debate about the BBC’s scale and funding should be taken out of the political sphere during future negotiations.

The BBC objected to the speed of the negotiations and the lack of warning before the reforms were announced.