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BBC risk management criticised

Summary

This Report ‘The BBC's management of risk’ (HC 643) makes recommendations on dealing with a variety of risk factors, from damage to the Corporation's reputation to personal risk to staff.

Risk comes in different forms, from the risk of damaging the reputation of the Corporation as a public service broadcaster to personal risk staff can experience when reporting from dangerous parts of the world.

‘The BBC's management of risk’ (HC 643) from the Committee of Public Accounts sets out a number of recommendations for the BBC on dealing with risk and highlights measures that the BBC's Executive Board are advised to implement.

Among the recommendations are:

  • BBC guidance needs a clearer delineation of responsibilities for risk management
  • The main themes of risk management are not aligned with corporate objectives
  • The BBC should update its assessments of the risks of working in hostile environments, as the abduction of journalist Alan Johnson showed
  • By failing to comply with its own Broadcasting Code, the BBC was fined by Ofcom over the live phone-in competition on Blue Peter, and illustrates that some programme makers are ignoring the BBC's own editorial guidelines, exposing the corporation to reputational risk
  • The BBC has not related its risk to corporate objectives or assigned all risks to named owners
  • BBC managers at all levels are not sufficiently engaged in the management of risk
  • There is still no fully satisfactory regime under which the BBC is accountable to Parliament for the value for money with which it spends licence fee payers money.

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Law-Making Explained

This is a House of Commons Paper (HC 643 2007-08): it is a Report from the House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts.

Find out more about Select Committees.

How does it affect me?

If you work in the entertainment sector or are a TV license payer, this affects you.

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