The BBC director-general has said that he is not giving up on the pursuit of £200,000 paid to Huw Edwards after his arrest last year, and that the corporation may have to become more “muscular” and stop paying staff if they are suspended.
Tim Davie, appearing at the House of Lords communications and digital committee, also admitted that if Edwards fails to return the hundreds of thousands of pounds, securing its return through legal means would be difficult.
“We have made a formal request [and] discussions are under way,” said Davie. “The BBC position is clear, the money should be returned and we have made the request. We do expect to make progress and get an answer. We will explore [a legal process] but that is challenging. Our position is clear, we have made the request and that is where we sit.”
Edwards, who is due to be sentenced on Monday after admitting accessing indecent photographs of children as young as seven, continued to be paid his full salary until his resignation in April despite the corporation being made aware of his arrest on “serious charges” the previous November.
“The police were giving us very clear instructions to keep it confidential,” said Davie. “It wasn’t an easy decision, it was really difficult getting the balance right. An arrest had been made, there were no charges in that. You can take risk and go against your policies. There might be legal risks in that, and significant welfare risks. The decision I stand by remained with suspension, and that is the decision we made.”
Davie said that in light of the fallout following the decision to continue to pay Edwards the BBC is looking at whether to go against “standard practice”, which is to continue to pay suspended staff.
“It is absolutely right to look back and reflect,” he said. “It is standard practice but maybe we need to challenge that. I welcome the idea that we look at that policy. Could you be more muscular in regard to payment? That is where we are.”
Samir Shah, the BBC chair, making his first appearance in front of a parliamentary committee, said that the scandal had done severe damage to the image of the BBC.
“What Huw Edwards did damaged the reputation and trust of the BBC and we take that very seriously indeed,” he said. “It was a shock to discover he had been charged and he had led this double life. Secretly he was this figure who did the most appalling things. I want to be clear, the person who betrayed the trust of the nation, the trust of his colleagues, was Huw Edwards.”
A committee member, Lord Hall, a former director general of the BBC, asked if the 11-year royal charter review system should be replaced, offering the idea of a model such as Channel 4, which is state-owned but free from periodic governmental review.
“We are almost constantly in review … in this not very comfortable relationship with the government,” said Shah, who said he would like the time-based review model scrapped. “It undermines and threatens our independence. I would absolutely welcome an exploration of constitutional innovation when it comes to the BBC and government.”
He also said that he was unhappy with the government’s power to appoint five of the 10 non-executives to the BBC board, with a further four members corporation executives, and believed the corporation should have the power to appoint its own chair.
Shah also said the BBC continues to have too much of a “metropolitan” and London bias.
“Power structures continue in my view to be focused in London,” he said. “The BBC continues to feel like an organisation that has its power base in London. We need to break that. The bottom line is to move the power out of London.”
