BBC white paper: What does John Whittingdale want to do with the Royal Charter and what is at stake?

All the biggest questions about the controversial new Government report answered

Culture Secretary John Whittingdale (Reuters)

What is the Royal Charter?

The Royal Charter is the constitutional basis for the BBC’s existence. It sets out the public purpose of the BBC, guarantees its independence, and outlines its governance structure. The Charter normally runs for 11 years and the current Charter runs out on 31 December 2016.

What is happening this week?

The government is due to publish its White Paper on the next Royal Charter this week. This is effectively an agreement between the BBC and Government that will determine how the corporation is run over the next 11 years. It is not an agreement about the funding of the BBC – this has already been agreed.

The White Paper will be debated in both the House of Commons and House of Lords but, but in order to avoid Parliamentary interference, is will not subject to a vote.

Has it been a straight-forward process?

Not really. The BBC’s Director General Tony Hall has been fighting off attempts by the Culture Secretary John Whittingdale to scale back the Corporation’s activities, force it to produce fewer programmes in house, and change its governance structure. How successful he has been we will have to wait and see.

So what are the main issues?

Remit

Mr Whittingdale has said the charter renewal process is looking at whether the broadcaster should continue to be “all things to all people” or should have a more “precisely targeted” mission in terms of its output.

But any move to prevent the BBC from actively trying to produce ‘hit’ programmes is being fiercely resisted by Lord Hall and many others inside and outside the Corporation who fear it is part of a right wing Tory agenda to make the it less relevant to public life and in the long run make it easier to dismantle the licence fee without a public backlash.

Scheduling

The BBC’s rivals accuse it of deliberately scheduling popular programmes against those being out by other commercial broadcasters, which it denies.

Mr Whittingdale was thought to be sympathetic to the idea of forcing the BBC not go head to head with commercial broadcasters with high profile programmes like Strictly Come Dancing that clashes with ITV’s X Factor.

But after this proposal was leaked to the press the Department of Culture Media and Sport denied that it had any plans to try and control BBC scheduling.

In a statement it said: “The secretary of state has made it clear on a number of occasions that the government cannot and indeed should not, determine either the content or scheduling of programmes.”

Programming

Currently, 50 per cent of BBC programmes must be in-house productions, while 25 per cent must go to independent producers. The other 25 per cent is open to competitive bidding, with both BBC and independent production companies eligible to apply under a system known as the “window of creative competition”.

A senior Government source told The Independent that the White Paper would set out plans “for the window to be opened much wider”, with “up to 100 per cent” of programming put out to tender, although some exceptions are likely.

Governance

Last time, charter renewal was used to reform the BBC’s governance: the Board of Governors, widely seen as discredited, was replaced with the present BBC Trust.

But since then the Trust in turn has since been criticised for its dual role as both “cheerleader” and “regulator” and will almost certainly be scrapped.

What is likely to take it place is a BBC board made up of executives and a majority of non-executive directors who will be responsible for the overall running of the Corporation.

Above that Ofcom, which already regulates commercial broadcasting, may be asked to regulate the BBC as well. Another option would be to create a Public Service Broadcasting Commission empowered to hold the Corporation to account and investigate complaints.

The big dispute here between the BBC and the Government is who should appoint the non-executive directors of the BBC Board. Ministers are keen to take this power for themselves – but the BBC sees this as dangerous political interference and wants it to be done by an independent appointments commission. Who has won should be clear in the White Paper.

Auditing

The National Audit Office already carries out roughly two investigations into the BBC a year. But under the government’s proposals, Parliament’s spending watchdog would be free to carry out as many inspections as it liked without getting permission from the Corporation.

While this is relatively uncontroversial some fear it could extend to asking editorial questions, such as whether the BBC gets value for money on its Saturday night entertainment.

The NAO denies that it could question the merits of any editorial or creative judgment at the BBC.

Pay

Ministers want the BBC to disclose the pay of all staff earning over £150,000. The BBC are resisting this because they fear it would put off ‘talent’ who would not want their salaries disclosed in the public arena. This is another area where it unclear who has won.

News online

The BBC has already indicated it will reduce some of its online content while also funding the coverage of local councils and courts and providing that content to local newspapers and websites.

Recipes and magazine-type features not related to specific programmes are likely to disappear from the BBC website. Other news organisations claim that they represent unnecessary competition.