BBC plans to move two-thirds of staff outside London in bid to appease Downing Street Director-General Lord Hall made the commitment which would lead to 3,000 jobs being relocated, many headed for the north of England

The BBC is hoping a pledge that two-thirds of its jobs will be based outside London by 2027 can stave off Government threats to the licence fee.

Director-General Lord Hall announced the plan in a piece for the Financial Times this weekend, which would lead to 3,000 jobs being relocated with many headed for the north of England. There is currently a 50-50 rough balance between staff working in London and those outside.

Lord Hall will outline his plans in more detail to BBC staff at a meeting in London on Wednesday.

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The move follows criticism from Downing Street, which reportedly accused the broadcaster of catering to a “pro-Remain metropolitan bubble” during last year’s election campaign period, while the BBC’s overall election coverage prompted a record 60,000 complaints.

Reheated pledge

The “new” pledge reheats a commitment made by Lord Hall last year, who said he wanted to lead an “organisation that is fully embedded and distributed around the UK”.

In 2004 the BBC appeased the then Labour government by moving operations, including BBC Breakfast, to Salford as part of a plan to expand outside of London.

The political environment has become more hostile since then, and Downing Street is examining decriminalisation of non-payment of the licence fee, which could cost the BBC around £200m a year.

Dominic Cummings, the Prime Minister’s strategist, favours turning the BBC into a subscription service so that it faces the same commercial pressures as Netflix.

The BBC’s present charter runs until 2027, but the level of the licence fee is due to be reviewed by 2022. A further shift out of London could help the BBC persuade Culture Secretary Baroness Morgan of Cotes that its licence fee privileges are justified.

Relocation costly

Last year the BBC employed a total of 19,231 staff, plus 2,700 at commercial arm BBC Studios, of which 52 per cent are based outside London, defined as beyond the M25.

It has also doubled the proportion of its TV programmes produced in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Moving staff out of London involves costly relocation packages, however. The Salford transfer is expected to cost £930m in total.

Channel 4 has opened a new “regional HQ” in Leeds – but in some roles earmarked for relocation, 90 per cent of London staff chose to take redundancy payments rather than move North.

BBC under pressure

The BBC faces additional political pressure to reverse its decision to restrict free TV licences for the over-75s to those on pensioner credit and is facing a new wave of equal pay claims following Samira Ahmed’s gender discrimination tribunal victory.

But Lord Hall defended the BBC’s value, saying it “can do more for Britain than ever”. He wrote in the Financial Times: “The BBC is the single biggest investor in original British content. Every £1 we spend generates £2 for the UK economy. We operate as an engine powering the whole creative sector.”