The BBC is recruiting a new Head of Investigations as it seeks to address allegations of company misconduct “thoroughly”.
As advertised on the organisation’s careers website, the broadcaster is seeking to hire two senior roles: a Head of Corporate Investigations & Whistleblowing, and a director in the same department. The Head of Corporate Investigations is a replacement for an existing position.
In a company restructure, the BBC’s corporate investigations staff will become a team in its own right, moving from an existing department.
The posts, which together could cost the company up to £240,000 a year in salaries, will oversee corporation investigations including serious criminal behaviour, violent and sexual offences, elevated personal risk, harassment, sexual misconduct and cases involving reputational risk to the BBC.
According to the job listings, the new department will help to “ensure the highest standards of integrity across all areas of its operations”.
“The role ensures that relevant misconduct is thoroughly investigated and addressed in line with legal and regulatory obligations,” the description reads.
“The Head of Investigations (Corporate Investigations and Whistleblowing) plays a critical role in fostering a culture of transparency, accountability and trust,” it states.
In a statement given to The Independent, a BBC spokesperson said: “These roles are simply part of a wider restructure.
“When it comes to pay, we strike a balance to ensure we remain competitive and can attract and retain the best people, and over 95 per cent of our spending goes on content and its delivery.”
The news follows intense scrutiny of the BBC’s handling of several high-profile scandals involving prominent figures, including presenter Huw Edwards, who left the corporation in 2023 after reports emerged in The Sun claiming he had paid a young person for sexually explicit images.
In 2024, Edwards, who spent four decades at the BBC, pleaded guilty in court to accessing indecent photographs of children as young as seven years old.
Whistleblowers who had given evidence at the time of the BBC’s internal enquiry into Edwards criticised the way it was handled, with one person stating that it felt like “things have been swept under the carpet”.
The BBC also faced criticism over its response to complaints about Gregg Wallace, the former MasterChef presenter, who was sacked in July 2025 after an investigation upheld several allegations of inappropriate behaviour.
Following the investigation, the BBC and production company Banijay UK acknowledged that “opportunities were missed to address this behaviour” sooner.
“We accept more could and should have been done sooner,” said the BBC at the time.
Likewise, the BBC’s flagship show Strictly Come Dancing has been rocked by a series of scandals in recent years.
In July 2024, Sherlock actor Amanda Abbington, who stepped away from the 2023 competition after just a few weeks, accused her professional partner Giovanni Pernice of “inappropriate, mean, nasty bullying”.
Pernice, who vehemently denied the allegations, was axed from the cast in June 2024 and has since been replaced. Following months of investigation, the BBC confirmed that they had upheld complaints relating to verbal bullying and harassment, but concluded that Pernice had not been physically aggressive.
Likewise, professional dancer Graziano Di Prima was dropped from the show after his mistreatment of his celebrity partner Zara McDermott, in 2023. Di Prima’s spokesperson confirmed the star had kicked McDermott once during rehearsals, which led to his removal from the show.
The dancer apologised for the events that led to his departure and said that his “intense passion and determination to win” may have affected his training regime.
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