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Entwistle aims at the bureaucracy
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be the first to commentPosted by PA 19 September 2012
New BBC boss George Entwistle took aim at the Corporation's layers of bureaucracy in a speech to staff today, saying it must be “managed in a radically simplified way" in order to succeed. The director-general, who started work yesterday (Monday), told staff that too often the organisation settles “for less than we should". He used the speech to announce the formation of a new Management Board of 12 people replacing the 25-strong BBC Direction Group.
Mr Entwistle also announced the closure of the Operations division which had been headed up by Caroline Thomson and her departure from the BBC. He said the changes would turn the BBC into “a more creative organisation led and managed in a radically simplified way"... He added: “I intend to change the way we're led to put the emphasis where it belongs - on creative people doing creative things; on our audiences and the exceptional quality of work they deserve".
Speaking to staff on the BBC's internal video channel, he said: “Though our best is often brilliant - in some of our output, we do settle for less than we should.. So I believe we owe our audiences a determined effort to raise the creative quality of what we do." He said he inherited “an organisation in robust health" and praised his “remarkable" predecessor Mark Thompson.
Mr Entwistle, a former director of BBC Vision and ex-editor of Newsnight, said his position as an “internal candidate" means he knows “what holds us back - the things we need to stop".
Among the problems he listed were “the silos, internal competition, the duplication, the jockeying for position. And at its worst, the leaking, the briefing against other people and other departments - and the sheer waste of energy and money that results".
He praised the coverage of the London 2012 Games and said the BBC had to use “the Olympics formula and make it work again" on events including the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, Glastonbury and Wimbledon. He also said plans were under way to cover the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War, the World Cup, the Winter Olympics and the Commonwealth Games.
Mr Entwistle told staff: “Every one of these - to a greater or lesser extent - is an opportunity to apply the lessons we learned from the Olympics about how to work with one another - and not place the narrow interests of programme, channel or service ahead of those of the audience. “How to collaborate to make output events bigger, bring more people into the frame and once again make the statement: only the BBC can do things with the ambition, scale and quality that bring the whole nation together."
He said he was worried by seeing “a culture emerge where only the experts are encouraged to say what they think" and and wanted a BBC where everyone was “qualified to have an opinion". He said: “A culture reluctant to criticise itself is a culture heading for trouble. So I think it's vital we re-establish, in private, the practice of robust self-criticism - that we become more demanding of ourselves in order to make our output better still."
Mr Entwistle also discussed the savings programme brought in by his predecessor and warned staff not to “waste time lamenting lost budget", saying: “The key to money in future is not to waste a penny." He praised the BBC's in-house production as “vital" but called for “a major scaling up in our engagement with partners" which will be seen as a sign the Corporation will take more shows from independent producers.
He said: “The next stage in this process must see us abandon Fortress BBC once and for all, and show how the public money invested in us can be put to work systematically for the benefit of more and more of the UK creative sector - in a way which serves their audiences as much as it does our own."
Mr Entwistle said the BBC had to embrace the online world, saying: “We need to be ready to produce and create genuinely digital content for the first time. And we need to understand better what it will mean to assemble, edit and present such content in a digital setting where social recommendation and other forms of curation will play a much more influential role."
DATELINE: 19 September, 2012
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