Accountability

English Regional Audience Councils

The Audience Council England is supported by a network of Regional Audience Councils, one for each of the BBC's broadcasting regions. 

The English Regional Audience Councils (RACs) have a particular role to play in keeping the Audience Council England in touch with what people in their region think about the services provided for them by the BBC.

This is in addition to their participation in the Trust's formal consultations and the identification of audience priorities based on the needs, interests and concerns of the diverse communities which the regional council membership largely aims to reflect and to understand through its wider public engagement.     

Regional Audience Council Meetings

The Regional Audience Councils assist the Audience Council England in meeting its Charter Responsibility to assess and reflect the views of licence fee payers in their region primarily by monitoring and reviewing local and regional BBC services, and those BBC network services which portray and reflect their region and the people who live there.  

Outreach

Each council is charged with engaging with a broad cross-section of licence fee payers in their region with the aim of increasing members' understanding of the needs, interests and concerns of the wider audience and so assisting the members in their assessments of BBC services and policies.   

Membership

Each RAC has a minimum of 16 members, drawn from a range of backgrounds and balanced as far as possible to be broadly reflective of the views of audiences throughout the transmission area, for example in terms of geographical location, disability, ethnic or national origin, gender, and age.

Members are appointed as individuals and not as representatives of particular interest groups, but an active involvement with various local communities and local networks is sought in order to help broaden councils' deliberations.

About a quarter of the membership is required to listen regularly to one or more of the BBC Local Radio stations in the region and to attend and report on the public meetings, or Local Audience Forums, organised by the Managing Editors of those radio stations. 

Click on the links below to find out more about the Regional Audience Council Members.