BBC Verify has ten managers on its payroll costing a total of around £1 million a year. Safe from cuts…
Their salary bands put the total cost no less than £700,000 even if every one of them sat at the bottom of their band, rising to just over £1 million at the top.
Guido understands the highest paid Verify boss, the executive editor, is on up to £172,000. Coming in second is the head of statistics, on up to £165,000, who manages the Civil Service plants inside the BBC. Neither salary is published, because the BBC only discloses pay above £178,000…
That is on top of up to £480,000 spent on just four Verify correspondent roles. Guido’s moles say the unit has earned the nickname “Workshy Verify” among some staff internally. This comes as BBC News director Rachel Jupp announces a fresh wave of 100 more job losses to save £5.5 million. The top-heavy management layer at Verify looks set to escape the axe…
Guido revealed last week that Verify is actually hiring staff amid the job cuts. Unread, unwatched, and underworked…
The Social Market Foundation, the ‘non-partisan’ think tank pushing John Healey to double Machine Games Duty in next week’s Budget, has been caught privately admitting that jobs will be hit by its proposals and the upsides of its tax hikes lack evidence. Catch up, lads…
A draft of its report, accidentally published with the staff’s internal comments still attached, shows SMF top brass conceding the tax would close venues, cost jobs, and hit bingo halls and seaside arcades. Their own director asked whether the jobs claims were overly optimistic…
The report, “Addressing the Harm”, calls for duty on Category B machines to double from 20% to 40%. SMF claims this would raise up to £458 million and somehow create jobs – their campaign is backed by Gordon Brown. SMF director Theo Bertram is a former SpAd to the gambling-obsessed ex-PM…
The draft says operators “may choose to close certain locations” and that “this could lead to job losses in the sector” before insisting the losses would be “more than offset” elsewhere. Bertram wrote in the margin:
“Is this overly optimistic? What’s the basis for the confidence that they will find jobs elsewhere?”
SMF Chief economist Gideon Salutin replied:
“You’re right, this does not guarantee the employee will find a job elsewhere, but it does show that employment across the country will grow. I believe the wording’s right here”
The report itself admits “we do not currently know how operators would respond to a tax increase.” The industry says 600 betting shops will have shut and 5,000 jobs will be gone by the end of 2026 after last year’s online tax rise. PaddyPower owner Flutter has just today axed 1,400…
SMF says limiting the hike to Category B machines would protect pubs. Asked whether it would still hit bingo and seaside arcades, Salutin replied: “Yes it would hit them”. Left out of the summary of the report…
On the much-disputed relationship between gambling and its supposed ‘harms’, Bertram warned colleagues “we need to be careful that we don’t overstate causality – the harms are associated”. Asked whether a causal link between machines and gambling-related crime was backed by the research, Salutin admitted: “Unclear, so I’ve changed it to correlation”. The £2.33 billion ‘harm’ figure survived anyway…
A line accusing the government of protecting gambling firms was flagged by Bertram as “maybe too strong for a HMT audience”. Salutin: “altered”. One reader in mind…
When Bertram warned the industry would point out the higher rate is already 25%, Salutin replied that it “brought in 500,000 last year. Neither James, me, nor Aveek can figure out where that 500,000 could have come from”. These are the experts telling the Chancellor how to tax the sector…
As for punters moving from supervised shops to the black market, Salutin waved it away as “a bogeyman”. Chump alert…
Read the draft report below:
Ofcom boss Dame Melanie Dawes has admitted today that tech firms have paid just two of the eleven fines handed out under the Online Safety Act since March last year. Giving evidence to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, she conceded nine remain unpaid, four of the offending sites have simply geo-blocked the UK, and three are still up and running with nothing changed. Why bother in the first place, then…
She told the committee:
“We won’t be able to recover every single fine on online safety. If foreign courts decide to… try and get in our way, there will be a point at which we have to accept that we won’t be able to recover that money.”
Preston Byrne, the American lawyer who saw off Ofcom’s attempt to fine 4chan (and emailed them a picture of a giant hamster), tells Guido the quango has only itself to blame:
“The 4chan ruling also made it clear that they’re not going to be able to collect if they get here… Come to an American court and get some. If you dare.”
A paper tiger…
Just announced by the BBC:
“The BBC has confirmed the closure of BBC Three, BBC Scotland and BBC Radio 4 Extra linear broadcast services in Spring 2027.
The BBC needs to make tough decisions due to the sustained financial pressures facing the organisation and must make savings of £500 million by 2028. Today’s changes were announced to staff this morning. It means:
- BBC Scotland will remain a channel on iPlayer. Content will also be available on BBC One and BBC Two in Scotland.
- BBC Three commissions, supported by increased investment in content for younger audiences will be available on BBC iPlayer and on other platforms, including YouTube.
- Programmes from Radio 4 Extra will be on BBC Sounds – and The Daily Service will be on BBC Sounds and local radio.
In a note to staff setting out the changes, BBC Director-General Matt Brittin said: ‘We need to make every pound work harder for audiences as we respond to the immediate cost pressures and reinvent the BBC for a changing world. We all know that means tough choices.’
He added on the closure of linear broadcast services: ‘Much of the great content they currently carry will still be found where audiences already enjoy it on iPlayer and Sounds. While this follows media speculation, I recognise the confirmation of this news will be hard for audiences and colleagues.’
Today, more changes have also been announced in BBC News. New Director of BBC News, Rachel Jupp will be laying out plans for further savings early next year as part of the longer-term vision for BBC News. Other divisions will confirm savings plans as soon as possible in the coming months.”
Fresh job cuts to be announced to staff in one hour by Jupp…
He cancelled one last week amid bad press from ITV…
Robert Jenrick on the Today programme:
“Can you now give a guarantee to your listeners this morning that no BBC presenter in the future will be exposed as a paedophile, as a number have been in the recent past? No, of course you can’t…”