Image: Flickr/ Stuart Pinfold
Five years ago, after the 2010 election led to the installation of a coalition government, it took George Osborne a full five months to secure ministerial agreement to a major public spending review. In the midst of it, after five days of shotgun negotiations, the BBC Trust found itself effectively forced to accept a swathe of additional spending obligations, as well as long-term freezing of the licence fee. The combined impact of those measures – as has just been confirmed by the BBC itself – was to reduce the BBC’s spending power by 26% in real terms, comparing 2015 with 2010.
There was much criticism at the time of the speed and secrecy which characterised the deal. The Trust succumbed with much reluctance, having successfully fought off the initial attempt by Osborne to force the BBC to take over the obligation (originally enacted by Labour) to provide free TV licences to households where anyone over 75 lived. We have since been told by members of the Trust that they would have resigned en bloc if the over-75s issue had been pursued: essentially on the grounds that this was a welfare policy, open-ended in its nature, and nothing to do with the BBC as such.
