should we trust the Trust?

Last weeks BBC Trust report into online revealed some shocking truths about the state of the BBC and the reactions from commercial rivals have been predictable. In an era of cheese pairing penny pinching across the corporation, to be £38 million pounds adrift takes some doing. Successive Director Generals have altered the structures of the organisation. Like a football manager, a new DG will change the team and mold it in his image. Each DG has the outward aim of improving the function pf the organisation. Each with the inner aim of harnessing the vast body into a shape that he can control and, like an Elizabethan court, this involves favourites being promoted and others being sent to the tower. Greg Dyke's flatter management led to more than twenty divisions, each with a seat on the management board; an unwieldy group who don't need reminding that they presided over the events surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly. The BBC that Mark Thompson inherited was a product of these events. Many of the structural changes that Thompson has brought in have centralised functions that had previously been devolved to the various divisions. However it still often appears as a multi-headed beast with little or no internal discipline.


Part of the landscape inherited by the current DG was the perceived need for greater external regulation. Previous governance was seen to be too close to BBC management. Ofcom was waiting in the wings, and privately, would have been pleased to have control of the BBC. The fix for this supposed problem was the creation of the BBC Trust. Although quiet in its first few months, it has now shown to take itself very seriously. It is a common joke at the BBC that the BBC Trust is the BBC's biggest growth area. Bit by bit the Trust has set up its own structures mirroring the BBC's. So there is a committee looking at finance, editorial issues, commercial issues and so on. They scrutinise BBC management plans and set the financial parameters; When the chairman of the BBC wrote directly to staff to give an update over impending cuts, many saw this as crossing an important line. Now they commission external consultants to tell them where management is going wrong. As a result the BBC is now effectively being run by a shadow government in Marlebone High Street. Important lessons can be learnt from the experiences of Future Media and Technology and the BBC's inability to properly supervise its own activities, however, a BBC reliant on, or influenced by, any external body, BBC Trust included, must be bad, not only for business but for the future stability and function of the BBC.