Biased BBC’s Alan reports “Always a good morning to hear Justin Webb making a hash of things and getting the wrong end of the stick….that’ll be most mornings then.
He was chortling and enjoying the ‘Shareholder Spring’ and which he suggested was all about a movement against the greed of the Bosses who were being paid for failure….and refuting that old ‘myth’ that the companies couldn’t recruit the best staff if they didn’t pay the best money.
However Peston slapped him down and said no, don’t jump to conclusions, its about performance….or lack of….the bosses haven’t performed and so don’t deserve the high pay…..if they had performed they would get the pay….the big money was still on the table if you jumped through the right hoops. Of course I have some sympathy for Webb because he was only following the argument of his own Boss, Mark Thompson who claimed he was only paid so much because it was necessary to pay the market rate to get the best….presumably he is the best then.
‘Mr Thompson, who was paid £834,000 last year, insisted that in real terms his pay had decreased since he joined the corporation more than five years ago.
He added that the BBC has to offer competitive salaries to attract top talent if it wants to be the best broadcaster.
Mr Thompson said: “Suppose we want to get the head of HR from a private company, we couldn’t get them because [what we offer is] hundreds of thousands of pounds less than people can get in the private sector. We are so far behind the market.” ‘
‘The BBC’s director general has claimed the corporation is finding it ‘extremely hard’ to fill senior roles because of the low wages it pays for management jobs.
Mark Thompson, said it was ‘not true to say there is a long queue of people’ hoping for high-level jobs at the corporation……‘It’s extremely hard now to fill senior jobs in the BBC and increasingly remuneration is a factor.’
He claimed bosses at the BBC are paid substantially less – said to be between 50 per cent and 80 per cent – than they would be elsewhere in the industry.’
I agree, personally I wouldn’t crawl out of bed, especially if it’s raining, and wander down to the job centre for less than a million a year, plus free tickets to ‘The Voice’.
‘ I wouldn’t crawl out of bed, especially if it’s raining, and wander down to the job centre for less than a million a year, plus free tickets to ‘The Voice’
Some, of course, are falling over themselves to.
It would be interesting to see how many of Thompson and his cronies could get equivalent posts in the private sector ‘paying hundreds of thousands pounds more’. They might find the culture a bit of rude awakening, too.
‘Shareholder Spring’?
Oh, Christ. Not another vacuous buzz-phrase.
Please, no.
Mr Thompson said: “Suppose we want to get the head of HR from a private company, we couldn’t get them because [what we offer is] hundreds of thousands of pounds less than people can get in the private sector.
What utter rot. The maximum salary for this role in the private sector is around £150,000. A ‘Licence Fee Payer Spring’ is long overdue.
Peston isn’t being totally honest. He’s been against high pay for bosses regardless of performance. He knows he has to accept the reality of high pay for good performance, but he doesn’t like it. Anyone following his blog for along period of time will have seen him say as much.