The Met Office has delivered a frosty response to accusations that its services had become too expensive for the BBC, saying that its contract was “never about the money”.
The BBC has put out a tender for its weather forecasting contract in a move that marks the end of the meteorological service’s 93-year contract with the corporation.
Former BBC weather presenter John Kettley, who worked at the BBC for the Met Office for 30 years, said that at each contract renewal the Met Office demanded more money.
In addition numerous media reports indicated that the Met Office’s contract accounted for the vast majority the £32.5m it receives annually from commercial organisations.
The Met Office posted a stormy response online rejecting the figures and arguing that the BBC got “great value for money”.
“We receive only a small fraction of that amount for our presenter services to the BBC,” it said. “Given that our presenters are paid at market rates this has to be great value for money. For us, though, it’s never been about the money. It’s about serving the nation and ensuring the public benefits from the best weather forecasts and warnings to make informed decisions.”
The Met Office said that the income figure cited came from a “wide range of customers – aviation, energy, marine, retail to name but a few”.
The BBC had also said that the decision to part company – the contract is tipped to be fought out between Dutch and New Zealand firms – was in part driven by a need to find “value for money”.
Earlier in the week, the BBC posted a blog of its own justifying the decision to put the contract out to tender.
Nigel Charters, project director for BBC weather procurement, said that the BBC is legally bound to go through an open competition for contracts to avoid “any inappropriate influence”.
“We have valued the Met Office’s relationship immensely over the years and were clear we wanted them to put in a very strong proposal,” he said. “But we have to consider all bids fairly. So last week we had to inform a number of bidders, including the Met Office, that having done a detailed evaluation of all the bids we are not in a position to take forward their proposals to provide the service from late 2016.”
