The Stage

BBC Resources to axe 200 jobs

Published Tuesday 2 December 2008 at 12:15 by Matthew Hemley

More than 200 jobs are to be cut from BBC Resources, the Corporation’s commercial post production and studios arm.

News of the cuts follows a meeting with union Bectu yesterday, during which it was revealed that there would be a maximum of 210 job cuts across the 700-plus staff, including 174 job losses in post production.

This would comprise 76 posts in BBC Bristol and BBC Birmingham and a further 98 in London.

Meanwhile, 36 jobs will be cut from BBC Resources’ studios arm.

In an email to staff, BBC Resources chief executive Mark Thomas explained that a decision not to sell BBC Studios and BBC Post Production earlier this year, at the same time as BBC Resources’ Outside Broadcast was sold, meant BBC Resources had been “left with a different future” than the one it had been expecting.

“Significant operational restructuring was put on hold during the sales process because the priorities would be different for each potential purchaser of the company. The decision not to sell BBC Studios or BBC Post Production means that we are left with a different future than the one we expected for BBC Resources. We are still a wholly-owned commercial subsidiary of the BBC and need to act accordingly,” he said.

Thomas said the aim of the restructuring plan was to make the “business smaller, more flexible and resilient to changes in demand”.

In BBC Studios, he said reductions would be made in areas including cameras, sound, design operatives and runners.

In BBC Post Production Thomas said customer demand had fallen.

“This means that our current staff base also does not match our customer requirements and we will make losses this year as a result. The restructuring numbers in post are higher than in studios, reflecting the scale of the changes needed,” he said.

Areas facing reductions include engineering, editors and colourists.

Where possible, Thomas said volunteers for the redundancy pool will be sought, but warned BBC Resources “reserves the right to turn down requests from staff who are of strategic importance, have rare knowledge or skills not easily available in the market”.

In the event BBC Resources is not able to achieve the required reduction through volunteers, it will “propose a selection exercise” where individuals would be assessed and selected for retention against performance and competency criteria.

Responding, Helen Ryan, Bectu supervisory official, said: “This is another major step in the casualisation of the entire industry and we have yet to be persuaded by BBC Resources that all the cuts are justified.”