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Source: Reuters
The BBC has been attacked by a committee of MPs for refusing to disclose exactly how much of the public's money it is spending on wages for its top radio presenters.
The Public Accounts Committee said on Thursday the National Audit Office (NAO), which has a right to scrutinise pay in any government department, has been blocked from seeing individual salaries.
The corporation, which is funded with over three billion pounds of public money each year, says it will only let the NAO see a breakdown if it signs a non-disclosure agreement.
Documents leaked to British newspapers three years ago revealed Radio 2's Terry Wogan was on 800,000 pounds ($NZ2m) a year; Chris Evans 240,000 pounds ($NZ615,000) and Radio 1's Chris Moyles on 630,000 ($NZ1.6m) a year to present his breakfast show.
Last year, leaked details showed top chat-show host Jonathan Ross was paid 18 million pounds for a three-year deal.
The BBC Trust said it keeps salary details confidential because it has "legal obligations to staff" and that disclosure would raise questions over data protection and privacy laws.
Committee Chairman Edward Leigh slammed the BBC's reasoning for the secrecy as a "complete canard".
"The reason why they give this excuse is because they have fought again and again to prevent parliament, the NAO, the Public Accounts Committee getting full statutory access to the BBC," he told BBC Radio.
"Because we don't have statutory access, they can then plead data protection. If we investigated this like every other government department then data protection wouldn't apply," he said.
"Surely we should have a right to know what's going on. Isn't this the buzzword at the moment: transparency," he added.
Replying to the criticism, the BBC Trust's Jeremy Peat said the corporation was subject to the data protection act and Information Commissioner's guidance whether MPs like it or not.
"There are confidentiality agreements that have been signed with staff ... that do not permit us to do so and the Information Commissioner is supporting that position," Peat told the BBC's Today programme.
Peat stressed it was the public broadcaster who had commissioned the study from the NAO looking into the efficiency of radio in the first place.
"We offered to provide this full information. We wanted them to carry out a full analysis ... provided they signed an agreement that other people working for us on similar studies have signed," he said.
Peat said it was the first time in 4-1/2 years he had had any problem with the NAO on provision of information.
MPs found that programmes such as Terry Wogan's "Wake Up to Wogan" on Radio 2 cost on average twice as much an hour as the most expensive commercial equivalent.
They also discovered that about three-quarters of budgets for breakfast and "drive-time" shows were spent on presenters.
And while commercial stations had been cutting presenters' hourly rates as a result of falling advertising, the BBC had until recently been increasing its rates.
