
Hundreds of BBC staff, including stars such as Mariella Frostrup, Victoria Derbyshire and Rev Richard Coles, have written to the corporation demanding “full pay transparency”.
In an open letter to BBC director general Tony Hall, they demand transparency around what all staff earn and how pay levels are decided. It is signed by nearly 250 women and men including household names and behind-the-scenes staff.
In January, the BBC said it aimed to be the “most transparent organisation when it comes to pay”. It followed a review of on-air pay by PwC and the pay inequality revelations of BBC editor Carrie Gracie.
The letter argues that making all pay and pay decisions transparent is the “fastest, cheapest and fairest” way to tackle unequal remuneration at the BBC.
The authors argue that transparency will also uncover any other inequalities that exist concerning not only protected characteristics defined in the Equality Act such as race, age and disability, but also characteristics that are not legally protected.
They hold that any employer committed to fairness should monitor pay differences relating to bias linked to social class, education and regional origin.
The BBC has published a median gender pay gap of 9.3% (10.7% at the mean), well below the national average of 18.1%.
A BBC spokesperson said: “We already have a project planned to look at transparency at the BBC which will consider – among other things – whether all salaries from the licence fee should be published and what other measures are necessary that wouldn’t put the BBC at a competitive disadvantage.
“The BBC already publishes more information about itself, its operations and its staff than any other broadcaster. We are already committed to going further and faster than any other organisation in closing our gender pay gap.
“We have set out real targets and have announced a project led by Donalda McKinnon to do all we can to help the progression and culture of women within the organisation.”
The spokesperson added that BBC Studios and BBC Worldwide are fully commercial businesses and are not funded by the licence fee. “It would be wrong to put them at a competitive disadvantage at a time we should be doing all we can to support British content against the global West Coast giants,” they added.
Source: personneltoday.com