Wonder what you make of the news that the BBC’s annual taxi bill for ferrying guests to programmes has soared by an astonishing £2million? In the last financial year it spent 5.3million on transporting contributors, up 60 per cent on the previous £3.3million. With more broadcasting planned from the BBC’s new regional centre in Salford – even though many guests will have to be brought up from London – taxi bills are likely to soar ever higher! And worst of all, what about those ghastly C02 emissions destroying Gaia? Isn’t it time that BBC contributors got out of their plush license tax funded taxis and onto their bicycles – if only to save the planet? Also, why is it that BBC execs travel first class? I see this on a regular basis and fail to see why such indulgence is permitted with OUR money?
TAXI?
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As a (very occasional) guest on BBC programmes, I always insist on them sending a car to pick me up from – and return me to – my office.
Without that, the measly £60 interview fee and the plastic cup of crap coffee just wouldn’t be sufficient incentive.
My employers are happy for me to do these interviews – it gets them an on-air credit and (so long as I talk sense) makes them seem a place of wisdom and expertise in our area of work.
But they sure wouldn’t be happy if I was absent for hors at a time cycling to Shepherd’s Bush.
It’s not the taxis for contributors we should worry about, it’s the chauffeur-driven limos for beeboids.
£5.3 million on gas guzzlin taxis alone by these climate criminals at Al Beeb?
they should be led outside broadcasting house, put up against a wall and shot for their crimes against humanity and mother earth
Assuming an average £20 fare – that 5.3m works out at about 50 taxi journeys a day (or 25 return journeys) for each of the BBC’s 15 or so TV and radio networks……….
doesn’t seem over the top to me.
PaulS,
I should declare that I have also been the recipient of one of these taxis – one late night when i was on a TV programme and my car was at an airport and I had no way to get it unless the BBC taxied me! That said, a 60% increase is huge and the consequences of the Manchester move will further hike this. So I accept the need for a budget but where is the control, the fiscal responsibility?
“Also, why is it that BBC execs travel first class? I see this on a regular basis and fail to see why such indulgence is permitted with OUR money?”
Presumably this comes under the category of “arket rates”? The majority of execs in large organisations travel first class — publicly funded or otherwise.
Back in January, during the Kenya post-election violence period, I travelled from Nairobi to Joburg in economy with Kenya Airways. Yet, Orla Guerin, whose biased and ill-judged reporting had helped to nearly destroy Kenya’s tourism industry, was flying to South Africa in business class.
Just one small example of BBC money wasted.
Ah St Orla, Patron Saint of Hamastan….
For someone who thinks he knows best about the ”truth” of global warming, it’s quite revealing that you spelt Carbon Dioxide with a zero instead of an O for oxygen.
A friend of mine who sometimes “appears” on BBC radio told me never ever go to one of their local studios to be interviewed. Their equipment is rubbish, it seems – prone to not working. You should *always* insist on a telephone interview. That way the interviewer cannot interupt you with the same ease as they can if you were in a BBC local studio.
that is not very revealing, james
the beeb is always telling us to do our bit for the planet now why wont the beeb do its bit and only interview people who are prepared to cycle.
The taxi fares would be a lot cheaper if not for all of Red Ken’s road construction blocking everything and making going across town a nightmare. Hopefully Boris will clean some of that up.
Or, maybe they spend so much money on taxis because they’re working at the office so late every night they miss the last train of the evening. More likely they’re out on the town and need to be poured into a taxi to get back home.
please let us not forget in our righteous anger that it is NOT bbc money being wasted, it is OUR money
I contributed to a BBC programme once and not one but two taxis turned up. I was in one the other followed. I was told this was normal practice in case one broke down.
Was 10 years ago don’t know if its still normal practice today but perhaps a Beeboid could advise.
Presumably this comes under the category of “market rates”? The majority of execs in large organisations travel first class — publicly funded or otherwise.
Barry | 14.07.08 – 12:41 pm | #
Rubbish – all the companies I’ve ever worked for, or run, tuned their travel policies to suit the prevailing financial climate.
When I worked for a PLC that was struggling – everyone up to board level had to travel cattle class.
When I ran my own smaller company, if profits were good we sometimes treated ourselves to first class on longhauls.
Since the BBC leeches its cash from the licence payers and it has no concept of profitability, accountability or frugality – it just spends like a drunken sailor and borrows or begs more cash from us.
People who are paid out of public money have no right whatsoever to demand “market rates” for salaries or anything else IMHO.
beeboids all have their credit cards maxed out like Rosie Millard. None of that has gone to helping 3rd world starving.
Even the lowliest beeboid owns multiple properties around the globe, like Rosie Millard.
whats a taxi ride or two to people like that.
Assuming an average £20 fare – that 5.3m works out at about 50 taxi journeys a day (or 25 return journeys) for each of the BBC’s 15 or so TV and radio networks……….
doesn’t seem over the top to me.
Anonymous | 14.07.08 – 12:19 pm | #
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Assuming that you are a beeboid, then it is perfectly acceptable for the BBC to pay 60% more in taxi fees than the previous year.
I noticed in your calculation you fail to mention that the BBC also has a fleet of vehicles also used to ferry employees/guests around in, I imagine that if we added the costs of these vehicles to your calculations the ‘real’ costs would be astronomical.
And neither your or my example includes the average of 3,500 miles flown by EACH BBC employee (last years figures).
If these figures are correct, that’s some shocking wastage by any measure. Clearly MP’s aren’t the only ones with snouts in the trough. But what are the odds on a Newsnight report on it?
Will86 | 14.07.08 – 6:19 pm
If these figures are correct, that’s some shocking wastage by any measure. Clearly MP’s aren’t the only ones with snouts in the trough.
What wastage?
What snouts in what trough?
As David Vance makes clear, these taxis are ferrying guests to and from radio and TV interviews.
I can’t see anything wrong with that.
If the BBC restricted its guests to those who lived conveniently near its studios, it would come over even more metropolitan elitist than it does already.
Also, why is it that BBC execs travel first class? I see this on a regular basis …..
According to the BBC’s response to an freedom of information request, they only bought 28 first class tickets in 2005-6.
Niven: It’s not the fact that the BBC are using them for ferrying guests that is the problem; rather it just seems like a lot of cash. When the general public are being urged to put on the hairshirts with the current economic woes, it only seems fair that the BBC moderates its spending in areas where it can. Instead of hiring taxis, why can’t the BBC just have a fleet of drivers or some kind of travel expenses scheme? Surely that would work?
David however also mentioned the BBC executives persistently travelling first class. Now admittedly, this could be to enable them to carry out work on the go, but again, it’s at the taxpayer’s expense. As John Reith Spins In His Grave suggested above, surely the BBC should “tune their travel policies to suit the prevailing financial climate”. Yet because they are effectively unaccountable, this will never happen.
In any case, as others have said, it’s a bit hypocritical given the BBC’s persistent prophecies about global warming. Perhaps they ought to use rickshaws?
“As David Vance makes clear, these taxis are ferrying guests to and from radio and TV interviews.
I can’t see anything wrong with that.
If the BBC restricted its guests to those who lived conveniently near its studios, it would come over even more metropolitan elitist than it does already.”
Yes,all those out of towners like Polly Toynbee,and the poor buggers slumming it in Islington and Hampstead,not to mention the Westminster Village.
“People who are paid out of public money have no right whatsoever to demand “market rates” for salaries or anything else IMHO.”
Great, so nobody who isn’t inept will ever work in the public sector. I can’t see any flaws in that one…
“Instead of hiring taxis, why can’t the BBC just have a fleet of drivers or some kind of travel expenses scheme? Surely that would work?”
Almost certainly more expensive.
Being driven around in a taxi is probably the only time that Beeboids get to have a conversation with someone outside of their media bubble group think. That’s why you always hear the Beeboids doing their left wing jokes about taxi drivers being right wing – it’s probably the only time that the Beeboids ever have prolonged contact with someone that doesn’t subscribe to their groupthink.
Only just today, on The Daily Politics on BBC2. Yasmin Alibi Brown did a ‘report’ on those beastly peasants that drive taxis and their awful right wing opinions. She couldn’t handle it and had to use a copy of The Independent as a defensive shield to block out the sight of the Talksport listening taxi driver.
Yep, abolishing the Beeb will dent the takings of the cabbies. And the rent boys and the cocaine suppliers….
I used to work for the firm with the taxi contract for BBC North West.
How I used to enjoy baiting BBC types with my ‘right-wing’ views. I genuinely believe they’d never heard opinions like mine before. The shock on their faces was a picture. Happy days.
But regarding the point of this thread, I gotta say, in my experience, the BBC is far from profligate with taxis. I’d love to say it is, but it just isn’t.
Late night staff get taxis, but this is standard practice in many industries – bars, restaurants, casinos etc.
Program guests get taxis from the airport or Piccadilly station to hotels and into the studio. They get private hire minicabs, not luxury limos. What’s the problem?
As for the 20 mile average journey, that’s nonsense. The vast majority of BBC fares are under 10 miles, in fact, most are across town – 1 to 2 miles.
I despise the BBC as much as anyone who posts here, but this thread does no good to the ’cause’. It makes you look petty and a little ridiculous.
Travis,
Ther 60% annual INCREASE was my fundamental point – where is the fiscal responsibility wuth OUR money there. I have to say I think there is a substantive point.
Note that staff taxi bills are down from £9.7m to £8.5m – ie the increase is entirely in providing taxis for guests.
I think all the day staff should travel on public transport. They need to get out and mix with the great unwashed a bit more.
In September 2004, the BBC contacted me to say that Des Lynam had interviewed Bernie Ecclestone for Radio Five Live. I was asked if I wanted an advance copy of the interview, but warned that there was an embargo which meant that I couldn’t use any of the content until after the show had been broadcast three days hence.
I replied that I did want a copy in order that I could prepare an article in advance and when asked gave the BBC employee my address.
OK, so global warming wasn’t as much of a cause celebre for the BBC back then, but they were always complaining about lack of money. Imagine my surprise therefore, when, just an hour after the original phone call, a motorcycle courier arrived at my door with the interview on a CD.
I am based in Essex, and therefore the courier probably ‘only’ cost £30 – £40, but I am pretty certain that had I said I was based in Manchester the courier would still have been despatched.
And all this for a piece that I still couldn’t use for three days.
Pitchris – an interesting insight into the BBC’s profligacy.
I disagree with you though that global warming wasn’t a cause celebre for al-Beeb in September 2004. They’ve been burbling about it for over a decade, shoving it down our throats:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1998/10/98/global_warming/206885.stm
By 09/2004 any sentient Beeboid would be fully aware of the global warming hype – they would probably have already attended a multi-cultural, lesbian-awareness, climate change seminar.