Category: BBC
Date: 29.07.2005
Printable version
BBC Governors today publish the findings for their Programme
Complaints Committee for the period 1 January to 31 March 2005 (quarter
one) and for 1 April to 30 June 2005 (quarter two).
The Governors' Programme Complaints Committee (GPCC)
is responsible for monitoring the effectiveness of complaints handling
by the BBC, including hearing appeals from complainants who are not
happy with the responses they have received from BBC management.
The GPCC came to findings on 22 appeals in quarter one:
20 related to matters of impartiality and accuracy and two related to
matters of taste and decency.
After careful consideration, the Committee upheld two
appeals in full or in part.
In this period, the Committee considered complaints
about the broadcast of Jerry Springer - the Opera on BBC TWO (Saturday
8 January 2005).
It did not uphold the complaints and, given the level
of public controversy surrounding the broadcast, published its decision
immediately. The finding is available online at
bbcgovernors.co.uk.
In the second quarter of this year, the GPCC published
findings on three appeals relating to fairness, impartiality and accuracy.
It upheld two of those complaints in part and another in full.
In May the GPCC undertook its first review of the new
complaints handling processes.
In the foreword to the bulletin, Richard Tait, Chair
of the GPCC, said: "It is the job of the Governors' Programme Complaints
Committee to ensure that complaints are properly handled by the BBC.
We concluded that the new system was easy to access and well publicised."
Notes to Editors
The Governors' Programme Complaints Committee (GPCC)
consists of five Governors of the BBC, to whom the full Board of Governors
has delegated responsibility for ensuring that complaints made by viewers
and listeners are "given due consideration by and are properly handled"
by the Corporation, as required under the Charter.
They are: Richard Tait (Chairman); Deborah Bull; Professor
Fabian Monds; Angela Sarkis and Professor Merfyn Jones.
In fulfilling this remit, the GPCC undertakes regular
reviews of the BBC's processes and performance in relation to complaints
handling.
In particular, the GPCC is responsible for the independent
oversight of the BBC's strategic approach to complaints handling, and
for monitoring the effectiveness of its processes, to ensure both serve
the public interest and reflect best practice.
In line with the GPCC's responsibility for monitoring
the effectiveness of complaints handling by BBC management, it is also
the specific function of the GPCC to consider appeals against decisions
and actions of the Editorial Complaints Unit (ECU) in dealing with serious
editorial complaints, where complaints allege:
That the complainant has suffered unfair treatment in a transmitted
item;
That the complainant's privacy has been unjustifiably infringed, either
in a programme or item as transmitted, or in the process of making the
programme or item;
That there has otherwise been a failure adequately to observe the BBC's
editorial guidelines.
Publication of the quarter one bulletin was delayed
by legal discussions.
