BBC staff broke the corporation’s rules on work experience by offering informal placements on a controversial new “intern-swap” website, the corporation has said, as it requested the posts be removed.
The site, MyInternSwap.com, which facilitates direct family-to-family exchanges of internships for 16-year-olds, has been criticised for “locking out” the children of parents who do not have placements to swap.
One employee at the BBC advertised experience in radio, web and news broadcasting. In return they were asking for their son – a 17-year-old student at the £15,000-a-year City of London school for boys – to be offered an internship in sectors including consulting, law or arts. The post has since been taken down.
The BBC confirmed that staff who had offered placements at BBC news and legal departments had breached rules. A spokesperson said: “Sourcing work experience placements from these websites does not fall within the terms of our policy. The BBC is strongly committed to equal opportunities and making sure our opportunities are open to all.”
The corporation would not say if the staff members responsible would face disciplinary action because it does not comment on internal staff matters.
On Wednesday morning the Guardian was still able to see a MyInternSwap post advertising a flexible work experience position at the BBC legal division.
The BBC careers website has four application windows a year for two-week placements. But they are so oversubscribed that it warns: “Please be aware that we receive a lot of applications for work experience and we can’t offer a placement to everyone.”
Nick Simmons, founder of MyInternSwap, told the Guardian: “This is not a zero-sum game, and MyInternSwap is not cannibalising a fixed pool of placements.” Placements with a taxi driver, medical researcher, seamstress and mechanic are also on offer.
Tanya de Grunwald, who campaigns for fair internships and founded the careers website Graduate Fog that first highlighted the high-profile positions offered on MyInternSwap, said: “The launch of this website has performed one service, however, by highlighting the fact that work experience is a broken bridge between education and the world of work. We should not have a situation where parents are left scrabbling around like this.”
She added: “Schools, colleges, universities must partner with workplaces to create a formal, organised work experience system where placements are fairly allocated to young people from all backgrounds. Valuable opportunities must be accessible to everyone, not just those whose parents have the contacts.”
MyInternSwap, which launched this year, has generated more than 700 offers of placements in 40 countries, according to Simmons.
He said there were plans for an “orphan scheme” allowing larger employers to offer placements for teenagers whose parents cannot provide placements in return.
