RM
plc and others v. the BBC - application for judicial review -
statement by the BBC
The BBC has applied to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport
for approval to develop a new digital curriculum service. The digital
curriculum service would provide a large range of on-line educational
materials for teachers and pupils in classrooms and at home.
In
making its application to DCMS, the BBC understood that it should
not incur any expenditure or undertake any activities for the development
of the service itself until such time as the Secretary of State
had granted approval for the launch of the service.
This
position was confirmed in a BBC witness statement in their evidence
in a judicial review action brought by the educational technology
provider, RM plc and a number of others.
Accordingly,
the BBC reassigned production and technical staff who had been working
on the project. These people have since been working on other programmes
and projects unassociated with the digital curriculum or have left
the Corporation. Up to this point over £5 milllion had been
spent developing the proposal and application for approval.
The
BBC has now discovered that some further activity has in fact taken
place involving expenditure commitments currently estimated to be
in the region of £60,000.
The
BBC has instigated an investigation into how the activity and spend
came to take place and has apologised to the court through its counsel
for previously having served misleading evidence.
|
