Ofcom & BBC Board Handed More Powers To Handle Complaints About BBC Content As UK Gov’t Publishes Long-Awaited Mid-Term Review
22.01.2024 - 00:43
/ deadline.com
Ofcom and the BBC Board are to be handed more powers to oversee complaints about BBC content including on its website and YouTube channel, as the government’s mid-term review into the corporation focuses intensely on the issue of complaints and impartiality.
The BBC has agreed to undertake “major reforms to boost audience confidence in its impartiality,” the Culture, Media & Sport (CMS) department said, with the organization taking on all recommendations from the review that takes place at the approximate mid-point of each 11-year-long BBC charter.
This includes extending Ofcom oversight to complaints about the BBC website and YouTube channel, handing Ofcom a legally binding responsibility to review more of the BBC’s complaints decisions and forging a similar responsibility for the BBC Board – newly chaired by Samir Shah – to oversee the complaints process.
A subcommittee of the board, which will benefit from “outside perspectives provided by independent advisors,” will also be given greater powers to scrutinize and challenge how the BBC handles complaints.
Notably, the person responsible for handling complaints will soon report directly to Director General Tim Davie rather than the director responsible for editorial policy, which the CMS said will “separate pre-broadcast editorial policy and post-broadcast complaints resolution.”
The BBC made a number of the proposals during the review period and they were subsequently recommended by the government. Some have already been taken on, Deadline understands.
Giving Ofcom and the board more power, forging legally-binding responsibilities and taking power to examine complaints away from BBC program makers is all part of the government’s drive to shore up the complaints