BBC Annual Report and Accounts 2007/2008
Part Two: The BBC's Executive's review and assessment

With over 24,000 people in 43 countries, in excess of 100,000 job applications last year, and in the region of 30 million hits to our employment website, the BBC takes staff recruitment, retention and training seriously.

The following map gives a snapshot of where BBC UK staff working in our broadcast and support functions were located as at 31 March 2008. (See note 4a for average across the year.)

A major consultation was concluded in April 2007, which saw the launch of a new People Strategy, five strategic themes aimed at unlocking the local and corporate business priorities in each BBC business group – Vision, Audio & Music, Journalism, Future Media & Technology, and central and commercial services:

Collective leadership:
We want to ensure that managers have the skills to foster a culture of creativity, openness and rigour around editorial standards and quality wherever they happen to work. To develop management capability, a new leadership training programme, Leadership Essentials, launched in October, and a new Staff Survey was introduced in April 2008 to help us to get authentic feedback from staff as well as to understand their attitudes and aspirations, and so work together. The first results are due in June 2008.

Getting the right skills and talent for a changing BBC:
This year saw the BBC undertake an extensive reprioritisation programme. This involved more than 2,000 job closures and redundancies (to take place by 2010) – as well as the creation of 800 new roles, many in new media and multi-platform areas as we conclude our preparations for a digital UK. Around 400 individuals are being redeployed within the business to gain new skills that will benefit the BBC and its audiences.

Reward for performance:
Get in the right people, and then reward them appropriately – that's the key to encouraging and achieving great performance. One element in our new approach to genuine performance management is the Senior Management Development, Potential and Performance Reviews being carried out across the BBC this year, and to be extended to all staff next year. We also launched a new online service for Flexible Benefits called myReward which allows UK staff to choose how to manage their own benefits such as holiday entitlement and pension contributions.

Salary is the cornerstone of staff reward. The following table shows BBC senior managers' headcount by full-time total salary for the year to 31 March 2008. Where staff are part-time, the full-time equivalent salary is given. This figure is made up of staff in both the public service and the commercial areas, excluding staff on maternity or unpaid leave at that date.

Table 1: Senior managers' headcount by salary band

Getting the basics right:
We are committed to constantly improving how we do things, making our processes and systems simple, clear and transparent to those staff who do business with us. This year we reinforced our joining processes (including right to work, Criminal Records Bureau checks and editorial compliance), and revisited some of our employment policies (updating our Grievance, Capability and Conduct, and Bullying and Disciplinary policies).

As a function, BBC People also revised its operating model to become more effective for customers.

Our relationship with Capita, our HR outsourcing partner, has been reviewed and they are currently working on a Service Improvement Plan to enhance their service capability. Our joint ambition is to work together to strengthen the services they deliver to us.

Changing how we work:
BBC People is tasked with delivering a new 'Employee Value Proposition' for the BBC, embracing Salford (mediacity:uk) and London (W1 and W12 sites). We want to make the BBC a truly creative place to work, and that will deliver real value to licence fee payers and benefits to audiences by offering them the great programmes and content that emerge as a result.

TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT

Across the board, training is crucial to our evolving people strategy. Whether it's a week-long face-to-face experience on leadership or a 30-minute online refresher course on health and safety, it is important that our staff have the right level of training and training support to carry out their duties.

Last year we delivered the equivalent of 70,490 training days to 63,487 delegates, many from the independent sector and wider media industry.

We are continuing to invest in a range of initiatives aimed at supporting new ways of working within the digital multi-platform environment, and our in-house training facilitators go around the BBC encouraging and facilitating ideas generation across the organisation.

As noted elsewhere, Safeguarding Trust was provided to 17,000 members of staff in the space of six months and is now being rolled out to the independent sector.

In total, we spent over £43million on training this year.

DIVERSITY

Variety of experience and outlook is vital to creativity – opposite points of view come together in a collaborative whole. And so it is important that the BBC employs people with different experiences, backgrounds and opinions. It helps us to meet our public purpose of reflecting the UK in its diverse communities.

This year we announced a three-year programme of investment and activity to further diversify the BBC workforce at all levels. Initiatives include a new journalism trainee scheme, launched in January. In addition, up to 50 places will be available for the next three years on Extend, our work placement scheme for people with disabilities, now in its 11th year.

Around half the BBC's workforce are women. As at 31 March 2008, 10.9% of UK staff were black and minority ethnic (BME) people (including 5.1% at senior manager level); and 4.7% had declared they have a disability.

Overall approval of the BBC among BME adults is positive, and is very closely aligned to the All UK adults' level.

OCCUPATIONAL RISK MANAGEMENT

The Director-General has responsibility for ensuring that the organisation has a health and safety policy and complies with it. The Executive Board approves strategy and monitors performance. On a day-to-day basis, local managers have responsibility for activities under their control. Our goal is to provide a safe and healthy working environment for our employees, the people we work with and those who visit us.

The Corporate Consultative Committee for Health Safety and Welfare includes senior managers and safety representatives. Staff are consulted through regular team briefings and local safety forums.

On a daily basis, risks faced by staff include stress, noise, manual handling and driving as well as those associated with studio and location filming, and major outdoor events. Journalists overseas often work in hostile situations – just last year Alan Johnston was held captive in Gaza for 114 days - and we continually have journalists in hostile environments including Iraq and Afghanistan. We provide specialist support to staff working in areas of conflict and other high-risk environments.

The BBC is committed to reducing (on 2000 levels and by 2010):

• incidence rate of reportable accidents by 60%
• number of working days lost from work-related injury and ill health by 30%
• incidence rate of cases of work-related ill health by 20%

And this year:

• incidence rate for reportable accidents down from 277 to 132 per 100,000 staff (down 53%)
• 101,700 reported absence days
• incidence rate of suspected cases of work-related ill health was 23 per 1,000 in 2000 down to 2.72 per 1,000 last year, mainly due to stress, upper limb disorders and other musculoskeletal problems. A new reporting system has been introduced and this will give more consistent monitoring over time.

There were no fatalities.

Enforcement
No enforcement action has been taken. The BBC received a report from the Health and Safety Executive which drew attention to shortcomings in management and practice. The Executive Board has outlined a plan to tackle these. Contact with enforcing authorities is routinely monitored by the Executive Board.

H&S Training
We recorded face-to-face safety training given to 7,346 people; around 8,000 courses were also completed online.

We are a member of the Joint Industry Grading Scheme for UK-based Stunt and Special Effects professionals. We work with other broadcasters and Skillset to implement a safety passport scheme to deliver transferable safety training to the media sector.