Can the government force governance changes at the BBC?
The BBC operates under a royal charter agreed with the government, the latest of which runs until the end of 2027. At the beginning of next year the government is due to start a midterm review of the charter, a “health check”, specifically focusing on governance and regulatory arrangements. The government will set the terms of reference for the midterm review so it certainly has the power to seek major changes to governance at the BBC.
What changes can the government make?
A “midterm” review was inserted into the last royal charter for the first time, specifically to make sure that governance and regulation is working without waiting for the 11-year agreement to come up for renewal.
Currently, the communications watchdog Ofcom regulates the BBC and one option could be to beef up its powers relating to editorial oversight. Michael Grade, a former chair of the BBC governors who regulated the corporation until 2007, has raised the idea of an independent editorial board of non-BBC journalists be set up to review and critique its output as a “sounding board”.
However, experts believe that the government does not have the power to institute governance procedures that would impact programme-making or influence output.
“The government cannot make changes that affect individual programmes, micro-level governance, but they can change the powers they currently have, such as Ofcom could act without waiting for official complaints,” says Steven Barnett, professor of communications at the University of Westminster.
Is the government likely to seek significant changes in governance at the BBC?
The government has shown it is willing to make major changes to the oversight of the BBC. At the last royal charter renewal in 2016, the government made sweeping changes scrapping the corporation’s regulator, the BBC Trust, ending 94 years of BBC self-regulation. It also moved to introduce a unitary board, for which it appoints the chair and a number of the 14-strong members, a model used by large publicly listed companies.
However, while it had become clear that the BBC Trust’s status as “cheerleader and regulator” was an impossible role, making a change inevitable, the Dyson report relates to governance failures from more than two decades ago.
The culture secretary, Oliver Dowden, who will lead the midterm charter review, has said he will “consider” whether further governance reforms are needed, but it seems unlikely big changes will emerge given the systems in place are much more stringent than they were at the time of the investigations into Martin Bashir’s interview tactics.
Lord Dyson’s report reveals damning failings at the heart of the BBC.
— Oliver Dowden (@OliverDowden) May 20, 2021
We will now reflect on Lord Dyson's thorough report and consider whether further governance reforms at the BBC are needed in the mid-term Charter review. (1/2)
