Source : The Guardian

The Oxford Media Convention was the venue for another bravura performance from BBC chairman Michael Grade. His subject - BBC governance - is starting to look like the single biggest issue facing the government as it struggles to prepare its green paper on BBC charter renewal. The DCMS, fresh from a climbdown on casinos and still wading through treacle on licensing laws, will be most anxious not to make a hash of this one - especially given the proximity of an election.

However, listening to some of the ideas being promoted by politicians, the Burns committee, Ofcom and not least the BBC itself, one could be forgiven for starting to worry that the treatment may turn out to be worse than the disease.

The general sense that the BBC needed sorting out, and that the governors were simply not up to the job, has its roots in a number of issues and events in the past five years. The BBC's behaviour in the marketplace became the subject of regular complaint from commercial rivals, notwithstanding the fact that the government had told the corporation to make more of its assets.

There was a sense that the BBC was acting without regard to its effect on others, a concern that was given added spice by the advertising recession. The BBC's competitors found it pretty galling to watch the BBC strut its stuff, flush with cash - even if the corporation's actions might actually have been in the best interests of licence-payers.

Then there was a sense that, in programming terms, the BBC was being too aggressive and competitive - a development the governors seemed to be either unaware of, or powerless to do anything about.

And to cap it all there was Hutton. Individually these issues all raise questions about governance, but probably different ones. But - as is so often the case in public policy - they have morphed into an overarching consensus that major and fundamental reform is needed irrespective of whether it is strictly necessary. (And there is no system of governance that could have been expected to cope with Hutton.)

Anyhow, this is where Michael Grade finds himself.

The BBC argues that its much-cherished independence can only be underpinned by self-regulation. Grade has made it clear that he will not compromise on this. But there is a real danger that some of the other things being offered to keep the wolves from the door - while superficially attractive - will in fact strike at critical aspects of the BBC's creative heart. In Oxford, Grade dismissed Ofcom's "light touch regulation" as inappropriate for the BBC, arguing instead that the governors needed "close engagement" with management decision-making, to ensure proper stewardship of licence-payers' cash.

The BBC has also argued - as reflected in the Burns committee's recent paper - that this close engagement would enable the governors to intervene earlier in the event of a problem. But if this theory is put into practice, the threat to the BBC's creative and editorial independence will come from within rather than without.

There is a serious risk that the governors, supported by their own secretariat and a phalanx of external advisers, would end up stalking the corridors of Television Centre like some kind of internal police force. I am not suggesting this is anybody's intention; rather it could emerge as an unintended consequence.

Whatever, it would pose a serious threat to the independence of thought and action that is vital to the BBC's creative culture. As the BBC governors strive to appear credible as a regulator, there is a real danger of damaging the BBC as a creative powerhouse.

There is no doubt that the governors need to be more independent of the management, and Grade's plan to pin down what the BBC does with "service licences" is to be welcomed.

But at the same time that they are holding management to account, the governors must also be able to contribute to and enthusiastically promote a strategy for the BBC at this critical time. In this role they will need to be at one with the management, standing firm in the face of external threats. Surely that would be easier - in all our interests - if the business of regulation was given to Ofcom.

 

© The Guardian