Trust statement in response to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee's Further Report on BBC Commercial Operations

The BBC Trust was established to give a stronger voice to licence fee payers and defend the BBC's independence.

BBC Worldwide operates within a framework set by the Charter and Agreement. It has no access to licence fee funding and operates at arm's length from the BBC's public services.

The Trust oversees BBC Worldwide's strategy and controls. We are committed to ensuring licence fee payers get a good return on their investment, while being mindful of the BBC's impact on the wider market, and to this end the Trust has been carrying out its own review of the BBC's commercial services.

The Trust's own review was launched in advance of both the Committee's work and the Digital Britain report. In March the Trust published its interim conclusions, noting that there should be changes to BBC Worldwide's detailed control framework to establish a more contained focus for its operations. The Trust said that it would publish its final review once the role of BBC Worldwide in the Digital Britain discussions was clear.

Given this timetable we welcomed the Committee's report in April, cooperated with their enquiry and responded as fully as we were able to at the time of its publication.

In the meantime our work has continued on specific issues. The Trust last week announced changes to BBC Worldwide's governance which were reported to the Committee. These changes addressed a number of the issues to which the Committee's latest report refers.

Although the completion of our review of Worldwide has been delayed until there is greater clarity around the Digital Britain report, we are eager to complete this work and look forward to announcing further conclusions as soon as possible.

Notes to Editors

The Trust's statement on Worldwide governance from last week can be found at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/news/press_releases/september/worldwide.shtml

The Trust's interim statement on its review from March can be found at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/news/press_releases/march/commercial_review_interim.shtml