Over a hundred million pounds over budget, four years late and the subject of a National Audit Office investigation, the BBC’s revamp of Broadcasting House was a disaster from start to finish. The ten year renovation project, which was supposed to be completed in 2008, was still haemorrhaging money right up until the day it was completed last year.

Media Guido can reveal that as the project drew to a close in the first six months of last year, the BBC blew close to a further £6 million of licence-fee payers’ money on the ill-fated rebuild. The £5.765 million finishing touches figure includes £3.2 million forked out for furniture and some £26,000 on “graphics”, presumably those aesthetically-pleasing billboards Lord Patten proudly did his TV pieces in front of at the height of the Jimmy Savile scandal. The Beeb are refusing to reveal how much they spent on individual decorative items, citing the feeble excuse that disclosure would weaken their “commercial bargaining position”. Nothing to see here.

Almost £6 million of licence-fee payers’ cash spent on the finishing touches of a doomed revamp that spent over a hundred million more than budgeted. 2012: a year to be proud of for the BBC…