BBC - Commissioning Technology and Online - Statement of Online Operation

How We Work

Statement of Online Operation

1. Overview

1.1. The BBC commissions a wide range of suppliers to provide technology, production and content in order to publish its online services. The minimum proportion of that output (“the Quota Requirement”) is determined by the BBC Trust in accordance with Clause 58 of the agreement between Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport and the British Broadcasting Corporation of July 2006 (“the BBC Agreement”). The BBC’s Executive Board is responsible for ensuring any requirement the Trust imposes under Clause 58 of the BBC Agreement is met.

1.2. Performance against the Quota Requirement is monitored by both the Executive Board of the BBC and the Trust and the proportion of eligible external spend each year is reported in the BBC’s Annual Report as a percentage of the total eligible budget.

1.3. In this document the BBC explains the calculation of the Quota Requirement (paragraph 2), the monitoring and reporting of the Quota Requirement (paragraph 3), the principles underpinning commissioning (paragraph 4) and goes on to set out a statement of operation (paragraph 5).

2. Eligible Activity and Eligible Spend

The Quota Requirement imposed by the Trust is expressed as a percentage (currently 25%) of what is known as ‘eligible spend’.

2.1. Scope

The definitions of eligibility are as follows:

Eligible Activity - The base level of activity that the quota applies to.
(The Denominator)

Qualifying External Spend - Qualifying spend outside the BBC that counts toward the BBC meeting the quota.
(The Numerator)

All online spend by Future Media & Technology and other BBC divisions, (including any future incremental investment in delivering television content via the internet), is included as Eligible Activity, with the following exclusions:

Stand-alone hosting and distribution investment (already 100% outsourced through the BBC’s existing SLAs).
News and News-related content (News, Sports News and Local News)
The “Where I Live” websites, because of their reliance on local news content production.

Included in the Eligible Spend are whole website commissions, creative inputs, content ingest costs, application technologies, content rights, customised software licences and contractors/freelancer/sole traders engaged on a “deliverables” basis.

Exclusions from Eligible Spend include standard software licences for desktop support, contractors/freelancers employed on an ongoing/time basis and all other non-production costs.

2.2 Any future proposal to vary the types of eligible output must be approved by both the Executive Board and the Trust.

2.3 As a matter of principle, the Quota Requirement may be met from anywhere within the BBC. Future Media & Technology are responsible for running the management of the Quota Requirement and agreeing divisional targets. It is the responsibility of each division to forecast and then subsequently meet or exceed their agreed target percentage.

2.4 In the event that a commissioned piece of software, content or production is not delivered by the third party producer (e.g. through company failure) then the spend originally commissioned will be deemed to count toward the Quota Requirement, regardless of any steps which may need to be taken by the BBC to complete or replace the original commission.

2.5 The BBC recognises the considerable contribution made by independent new media suppliers. The BBC has undertaken that the Quota Requirement is a floor not a ceiling and the BBC is open to further growth of the sector on the basis of creative merit and value for money.

3. Monitoring and Reporting

3.1 The Executive Board of the BBC is responsible for ensuring the BBC complies with the requirements imposed by the BBC Trust in relation to Clause 58. Effective oversight of quota achievement requires pooling of information on eligible spend and external spend across all BBC divisions. Responsibility for collating this information lies within the Future Media & Technology division. Collation must be both ex-post and ex-ante (e.g. through budgeting and forecasting processes), and on an ad hoc basis for unplanned expenditure.

3.2 Consultation with the industry and the Trust has underlined the need for a robust process, thereby ensuring confidence in the information reported by the BBC. A detailed reporting template has been developed with input from external consultants, Future Media & Technology Finance and an internal risk consultant. The BBC has created specific accounting codes to aid the monitoring of external spend via the SAP accounting system. BBC Divisions complete the template, reporting external spend on a quarterly basis. Because of the need to avoid duplication of reporting between television and online, the process of template completion remains semi-manual.

Process checks include:

Signed affidavits on quarterly divisional spend – signed by each division’s Finance Director.
Cross checking of all funding submissions against central records by Future Media & Technology Finance.
Monthly monitoring of performance data and major project spend as part of portfolio performance management at the Future Media & Technology Group Board.
The ability to capture external spend through specific accounting codes
(using the SAP financial system).
Verification of individual submissions through checking of data against underlying accounting (SAP) information. This is undertaken for projects which have significant investment (£2m and over).

3.3 The Executive Board is responsible for monitoring performance against the quotas and targets and for ensuring that BBC Online complies with all of the requirements. The Executive Board will report performance to the Trust on a half-yearly basis.

3.4 The Executive Board should report to the Trust on an interim basis where a significant risk of not achieving a quota arises. The Trust may request further updates as necessary to ensure appropriate remedial action is taken.

3.5 The performance against the Quota Requirement is audited annually by the BBC’s internal audit service and will be completed before final figures go to the Trust for publication in the Annual Report.

3.6 As soon as possible after the end of each financial year the Executive Board submits a report to the Trust, which includes the outturn in relation to the Quota Requirement along with the Executive Board’s commentary on the effectiveness of the operation of the arrangements for the year concerned.

3.7 The Trust reports publicly on performance in the BBC’s Annual Report and Accounts. After considerable consultation with the new media industry, it was agreed that publishing the following performance metrics will be helpful to the industry whilst not compromising commercial confidentiality:

Total BBC spend on its online services
Total excluded activity
Total eligible external spend and percentage attained
Headline performance by BBC division
A breakdown of eligible spend by project type
% of spend of commissions from the Approved Supplier List
Freelancer spend
Number of new media suppliers contracted over a 12 month period
Number of new media suppliers not previously contracted by the BBC
A national/regional breakdown of commissions

4. Principles Underpinning Commissioning

4.1 Commissioners seek to bring audiences and the licence fee payer great content and services which represent the best possible value for money. The BBC believes this is best achieved by a combination of in-house production and external spend.

4.2 The BBC may commission directly from its in-house production base, based on the appropriate utilisation of existing skills and value for money. Wherever and whenever external suppliers are invited to pitch for commissions the BBC is committed to fair and equal treatment of all potential bidders and a transparent commissioning process. In practice this means:

4.2.1 a short-listing of appropriate suppliers from a new media approved supplier list (ASL), with a request for proposals (RFP);

4.2.2 all eligible suppliers will be treated equally and provided with equivalent information so none gains an unfair advantage; and

4.2.3 commissioning decisions will be based solely on the creative/technical merit of the proposal and the value for money offered to the audience and the licence fee payer.

4.3 The BBC will maintain clear and efficient management of information and will seek to minimise the costs relating to the commissioning process borne by suppliers and the licence fee payer. The use of an online commissioning system to tender out projects reduces these costs.

5. Statement of Operation

5.1 Within the above principles, each division is free to determine its own structure for commissioning and commissioning cycles - which will vary according to the demands and needs of the divisions. BBC Vision may accept online content proposals that are linked to television commissions under existing BBC Terms of Trade. Other suppliers may be commissioned through an invitation to tender to a number of suppliers selected by objective criteria. The aim is always to find the most efficient, effective and fair way to identify and commission the best ideas. For very small commissions (under £15,000), a letter of enquiry may be sent to a single, approved new media supplier.

5.2 Fairness means being honest with suppliers about their prospects of success. Encouraging producers to devise and submit more proposals than can reasonably be considered is a waste of time and money, both for them and the BBC. It is also pointless to invite proposals from individuals or organisations unable to demonstrate the ability to deliver what the BBC requires. Appropriate suppliers are therefore short-listed before publication of a Request for Proposal to ensure the BBC is asking the most relevant suppliers to pitch.

5.3 Details of processes, commissioning cycles, a guide to who’s who in commissioning, full details of the BBC’s new terms of trade for independent commissions and details of BBC guidelines and policies are available on the BBC Commissioning website.

5.4 Details of the BBC New Media Approved Supplier List and how to become an approved supplier are available on the BBC Future Media website.

5.5 The information to be provided by Future Media & Technology for the use by each new media commissioning division will include:

5.5.1 commissioning guidelines which explain the process, make it clear who can pitch and set out a timetable for offers and commissioning decisions;

5.5.2 commissioning templates which contain clear guidance on the editorial, audience and price requirements for available slots;

5.5.3 guidance on how to write and submit proposals;

5.5.4 guidance on what the BBC expects the proposed price to reflect, in particular in terms of underlying rights requirements and any new media content and/or metadata needed; and

5.5.5 a clearly stated complaints process, maintained on behalf of the BBC by the Head of External Supply, Future Media & Technology.

5.6 The BBC may choose to provide the acknowledgements and information described above by providing access to an online database of proposals.

BBC - Commissioning - Statement of Online Operation