BBC must step up if it wants a permanent Royal Charter, warns Lisa Nandy
The BBC needs to improve accountability and editorial standards as well as decentralise its commissioning power if the public broadcaster is to be granted a permanent Royal Charter agreement, UK culture secretary Lisa Nandy has said.
Appearing on BBC Radio 4’s The Media Show, the secretary of state for culture, media and sport admitted she feels “deeply frustrated by a series of failures” at the pubcaster recently and wants BBC bosses to take more responsibility in times of crisis.
The comments come as the ruling Labour Party continues to review the BBC’s Royal Charter, which comes to an end on December 31, 2027.
Last week, outgoing BBC director-general Tim Davie told podcast The Rest is Entertainment that he would like to see the Labour government to introduce “a basic level of charter that has a time length that goes forever.”
It now seems the government agrees and believes the current BBC Charter cycle, which typically lasts around 10 years, should be axed and replaced with a rolling model.
Nandy said: “From the outset I’ve said that this charter has to not just set the terms for the BBC for the next decade but set it up to be able to thrive until well into the latter half of this century.
“The funding and terms will continue to be negotiated through each successive charter period, but the BBC’s right to exist will not be up for negotiation. It will continue to exist in perpetuity.”
That will come as bad news to the broadcaster’s fiercest critics, notably political party Reform UK, which has pledged to end the BBC’s licence fee funding model if it wins the next general election.
Nandy did make it clear, however, that a permanent charter will come with caveats. In particular, the Manchester-born MP for Wigan wants to see the BBC decentralise its commissioning operations, with executives in the nations and regions handed more power to greenlight shows.
She told the Media Show: “The institution has done more, I believe, than any other to set up a very strong geographical footprint to ensure that there’s more programming and more investment coming from outside of London.
“But what hasn’t moved is the commissioning power, and that’s what I want to see happen next, so that you have very strong regions and nations that are able to hold the centre to account.”
The embattled BBC has come under fire numerous times recently over a series of much-publicised scandals.
These include the controversial Panorama documentary that resulted in US president Donald Trump filing a US$10bn defamation lawsuit; the airing of Glastonbury footage showing rap duo Bob Vylan leading anti-Israel chants; and the broadcasting of a racial slur during last month’s Bafta Film Awards ceremony.
Nandy is adamant BBC bosses must learn to act with more haste and take responsibility for such gaffes.
“There is a very strong need for more accountability in the BBC,” she said. “When I talk to BBC staff in Cardiff, Salford or Glasgow there is a strong sense of them feeling very accountable to the public, but I’m not sure that’s always reflected at the highest levels of the BBC.
“I remain deeply frustrated by the series of failures and the inability at most senior levels of the BBC to move quickly to put things in place to fix them and prevent them from happening again.
“Editorial standards is one of the issues that occur on an almost monthly basis. There is a need for high-level editorial experience at the top of the organisation. I cannot tell you the strength of feeling in Parliament about this. The same challenges keep reoccurring and there appears to be an inability to understand there is a problem until it is pointed out by senior politicians.”
