The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) today publishes its report on
the BBC's Across the UK (ATUK) programme, under which the BBC
aims to move outside of London a further £700m of its spending by
March 2028. The report finds that the BBC's move of this spending
is being taken forward without a clear plan, with concerns around
the risks and impact of changes made to ATUK.
The PAC's inquiry finds that ATUK is overly focused on moving
spending outside of London as a measure of success in itself,
rather than robustly tracking what positive change it is
achieving by having done so (such as improving the relevance of
is content to local audiences, or creating new, local jobs).
Plans to evaluate the programme's impact are only due to begin in
2025 – too late to change course if needed.
The report further raises concerns that the risks and impacts of
changes made to ATUK's scope were not well enough understood by
the BBC, with changes made to local services potentially
disadvantaging certain groups. Particular concerns relate to the
BBC moving budgets from its local radio to local online services,
in effect reducing services for older people or those less able
to access online platforms, which was part of the original ATUK
programme.
The BBC's reporting of ATUK – including in relation to local
radio cuts – does not provide Parliament nor the public with a
complete picture of progress. The PAC is concerned that the BBC
claims benefits for ATUK publicly for activities not part of the
programme when it is favourable for it to do so (for instance in
the case of the relocation of its Birmingham premises), while
dissociating other activities from ATUK when they could be seen
as a bad news story, such as cuts to local radio.
The PAC's inquiry found concerns that the BBC's confidence is
misplaced that ATUK will deliver as expected. While it has
performed well in some areas (such as moving 58% of TV
expenditure outside London against a target of 60% by December
2027), it is behind schedule in other areas with no plan to get
back on track. One example of this is audio production, which has
had just 1 percentage point of expenditure moved outside London
since March 2020 (currently at 41% against a target of 50% by
2028), with a £23m shortfall in transferred spend resulting from
the cancelled relocation of the BBC Concert Orchestra outside of
London.
Dame Meg Hillier MP, Chair of the Committee,
said: “The BBC is seeking to liberate hundreds of
millions in spending from the gravitational pull of London, and
it is understandable that the simple act of having done so would
feel like success. But as with every publicly-funded project, it
is incumbent on the BBC to track what positive impact its
spending is having at the same time.
“Parliament and the public must also be fully satisfied that the
BBC is not simply cherry-picking examples of success in delivery
of Across the UK, while sweeping bad news stories under the rug
as not part of the programme, in particular cuts to local radio.
It must also take care not to over-rely on partnerships with
local authorities already dealing with extreme financial
pressure. We wish the BBC fair wind with ATUK, and hope our
report comes as a timely reminder of the importance of seeking
value for money, rather than just money spent.”
Conclusions and recommendations
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The BBC's plans for Across the UK are overly focused on
the actions it will take, rather than what impact it intends to
achieve. The BBC considered moving £700 million of
expenditure outside London to be a key measure of success of
the programme, but the BBC did not give us a coherent
explanation of the impact it expects to deliver for licence fee
payers from this commitment. The BBC plans to use a “basket of
measures” to assess the success of the programme. However, most
of the measures it plans to use are input measures, referring
to the BBC's actions (such as moving jobs). It has limited
outcome measures to demonstrate the positive change the BBC
intends to achieve (such as improving the relevance of its
content to its local audiences and creating new, local jobs in
the creative sector), but the BBC recognised that it was
currently focused on driving the input measures.
Recommendation 1: The BBC should refresh its plans for
Across the UK and, as part of its response to this report, it
should set out its strategy for realising benefits and what it
will deliver (including for licence fee payers, local
communities, the wider sector and BBC staff) during the remainder
of its Across the UK programme.
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The BBC has not assessed how the changes it has made to
the scope of Across the UK will affect the overall shape of the
programme and the benefits it is intended to
deliver.Since the BBC's announcement in March 2021, it
has changed the composition of projects that make up the Across
the UK programme. For example, it has removed from the scope of
the programme its original plan to build a network of 100
digital community reporters, as well as the planned relocation
of the BBC Concert Orchestra outside London. The BBC will need
to find other ways to move its audio spend in order to
compensate for these decisions and hit its target to spend 50%
of its audio expenditure outside London. But the BBC did not
understand well enough the risks and impacts of these changes
in scope and so the nature of the expenditure it moves outside
London by the end of the programme could look quite different
from what it planned at the outset. Changes the BBC is making
to services locally could also disadvantage certain groups. In
particular, and although no longer part of Across the UK, we
are concerned that the BBC's reallocation of budgets from local
radio to local online services and more sharing of weekday
programmes will, in effect, reduce services for people who are
older or less able to access digital online platforms.
Recommendation 2: Where the BBC has made changes to Across
the UK by bringing activities in and out of scope, it should
compare current delivery and future forecast delivery against its
original plan so that it can spell out any differences in the
overall benefits to be delivered. It should refresh this analysis
on an ongoing basis.
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The BBC remains very confident that it will deliver
Across the UK as expected – we are concerned this is misplaced,
given it is behind schedule in key areas. The BBC's
initial lack of planning resulted in unrealistic timelines for
some areas of the programme, such as moving roles and local
recruitment. The BBC repeatedly expressed confidence that it
will deliver its Across the UK objectives. It says it has
performed well in some areas, such as moving 58% of TV
expenditure outside London, against its 60% target. It reported
that it had caught up with previously missed transfer
expenditure targets and claimed that it will meet its overall
target of transferring £700 million of its expenditure outside
London by March 2028. However, in some key areas the BBC has
made slow progress or missed its targets, and its explanations
for how it would get back on track were not convincing. It
aimed to spend 50% of its audio production budget outside
London by March 2028, but had only achieved 41% of spending
outside London so far, from 40% in March 2020, and it had a £23
million shortfall in transferred expenditure resulting from the
cancelled relocation of the BBC Concert Orchestra outside
London. By March 2023, the BBC placed 27 apprentices
through its West Midlands Apprentice Hub, against a target of
50. It similarly had recruited 617 in-house apprentices against
a target of 713, with 60% outside London against a target of
80%.
Recommendation 3: The BBC should urgently finalise its
plans for getting back on track where it is behind on
implementation of Across the UK, including transferring audio
spend outside London and its plans for apprentices.
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The BBC's reporting of Across the UK does not provide
Parliament nor the public with a complete picture of progress
with the programme, and risks causing confusion. The
BBC considered its internal governance of programmes to be
tight and specific, but in its public communication of its
progress with Across the UK it sets out its ambitions and how
it meets its public purposes more broadly. The BBC told us it
considered the relocation of its Birmingham premises from The
Mailbox to Digbeth as a separate project from Across the UK yet
it included its benefits as part of Across the UK in its
2022-23 Annual Report and Accounts. The BBC stands by its
presentation of activity in this way. We are concerned that the
BBC is claiming benefits for Across the UK publicly when it is
favourable for it to do so for activities that are not part of
the programme, compared with dissociating other activities from
the programme when they could be seen as a bad news story, such
as cuts to local radio.
Recommendation 4: To improve transparency, in future
public reporting on Across the UK, including its next Annual
Report and Accounts, the BBC should align its reporting of
progress on implementation so that its external and internal
reporting on Across the UK are consistent with each other.
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The BBC's plans for evaluating Across the UK are
incomplete and it does not have in place an overall approach
for assessing impact. To assess Across the UK, the BBC
planned to measure changes to audience perception as well as
additional economic benefits such as jobs created. However, it
lacked a comprehensive framework that pulled together its
different measures to give the overall picture of the
programme's impact. At this stage of the programme, we would
have expected the BBC to already have a benefits management
strategy and plan in place. Despite starting the programme in
2021, the BBC did not expect to develop its evaluation plan
until the second phase of the programme and would not evaluate
until 2025. This will be too late for it to understand the
impact the programme is having, to make any changes it may need
to make, and to realise the benefits from any changes. The BBC
has not articulated what success will look like, nor does it
have standardised measures of success for its regional hubs in
terms of local impact and generating economic growth. The BBC
spoke of the recent publication of an evaluation of Doctor
Who's economic impact in Wales following its re-launch in 2005
in Cardiff. That was not part of Across the UK, but the BBC
would not commit to undertaking comparable evaluations of
economic impact for the regional hubs where Across the UK is
focused.
Recommendation 5: The BBC should urgently set out a
framework that brings together how it will consistently measure
all of the tangible, beneficial impacts of Across the UK for
audiences and in generating local economic growth.
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The BBC has not fully grasped the significance of the
other bodies and communities it needs to work with effectively
and which are crucial to the success of Across the UK.
As part of Across the UK, the BBC has established partnerships
with local authorities, combined authorities and local industry
bodies. The BBC highlighted the value of local partners to the
delivery of Across the UK and the work it does, but its
evidence is contradictory. The BBC said it wanted partners to
bring in investment but also insisted it could deliver Across
the UK without them. It also claimed its plans are unaffected
by the cancellation of the planned HS2 train line between
Birmingham and Manchester. Several local authorities are close
to declaring themselves bankrupt and may have to withdraw some
local services, yet the BBC did not understood the full impact
of these financial pressures and lacked contingency plans if
local partners have to pull out. Furthermore, although Across
the UK is designed to change the culture of the BBC and will
have a significant impact on many staff, the BBC did not
collect data on what its staff think about the programme.
Recommendation 6: As part of its response to this report,
the BBC should set out:
- how it will identify and monitor the impact of any sudden or
unexpected changes to commitments from its external partners, and
what contingency plans it has for such uncertainties.
- how it will engage more fully with its staff to understand
and take account of their views to make its implementation of
Across the UK a success.
