The BBC director general has said he would not stop his managers working in senior positions at charities, despite the fallout from Alan Yentob’s involvement with Kids Company.
Tony Hall made the comments while being quizzed by the BBC Trust at its meeting in October as the furore around the actions of the BBC’s creative director was growing.
Hall was asked if in light of the allegations that Yentob had attempted to influence coverage of Kids Company, where he held the post of chairman, the corporation’s policy and guidelines on handling potential conflicts of interest were “sufficiently clear”.
Hall, delivering his monthly report to the trust, said that “in his view, the policy and guidelines were fit for purpose,” according to the minutes of the meeting published on Wednesday.
Last week, Yentob announced he would stand down as creative director, despite the BBC and the trust clearing him of influencing news output about Kids Company on Newsnight, the Today programme and World at One.
Hall added that it was “important that BBC staff participated in the wider community and in charitable work and he would not recommend preventing staff serving on charities.”.
Critics of the BBC argue that regardless of whether the news output was affected, there needs to be an investigation into the alleged attempts to influence the programmes.
The trust is not launching an investigation into Yentob’s actions but has instead asked David Jordan, the BBC’s director of editorial policy and standards, to file a report early next year giving his view on whether changes should be made to the “processes for managing conflicts affecting senior managers”.
Jordan has been asked to look at a number of areas, including whether there needs to be additional rules applied to external activities undertaken by senior managers.
And whether “any more specific measures should apply when an external activity becomes the focus of news coverage”.
The BBC Trust said it may look to take further action depending on the conclusions Jordan draws in his report.
