BBC bosses will be criticised by MPs today for allowing the partial redevelopment of the corporation’s White City site to cost £60 million more than its initial budget.
The BBC made hundreds of changes to the scheme and did not allow for items such as furniture. The Public Accounts Committee will also say that some of the buildings on the West London site are not being used two years after their completion, at a cost of £1 million a year to licence-payers.
Edward Leigh, the Conservative chairman of the all-party committee, said that the BBC’s “management of the project can be criticised on a number of counts” and that the problems had only emerged amid a special investigation.
The accusations of mismanagement come at a sensitive time for the BBC, which is negotiating a renewal of the licence fee. It wants an increase of the inflation rate plus 2.3 per cent — partly to help to meet the cost of new buildings in Manchester.
Mr Leigh said that the BBC should be regularly audited by the National Audit Office. The corporation has resisted routine intervention by the public spending watchdog, only agreeing to a special arrangement in 2003 for six value-for-money studies. “There is no possible reason why the BBC should not be as accountable to Parliament as any other organisation spending public money,” he said.
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Five years ago the BBC entered into a £210 million deal to redevelop part of its White City headquarters with Land Securities Trillium. The property company was to have provided three new buildings for the BBC to use for 30 years.
The BBC had to pay another £60.9 million because the initial expense did not take into account other costs, including furniture and moving staff into the buildings. The BBC made 300 changes to the brief, described by the committee as “time-consuming and overly complicated”.
The BBC failed to ensure full occupation of the new facilities, which were for its Broadcast commercial subsidiary. Offices at one of the buildings, intended for power supply, were unused at a cost of £900,000 a year.
The MPs gave warning that the building contractors could have been able to make excessive profits, partly because the BBC did not know whether the profits of Land Securities Trillium were within the 30 per cent limit in the contract. To deal with the threat, the BBC bought out its partner last year.
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The corporation said: “As the BBC made clear during the parliamentary hearing, the Broadcast contract was based across a 30-year term to recover all the BBC’s costs. There can be no question of the BBC not securing full cost recovery from its commercial subsidiaries.”