BBC Scotland to be held to account by Scottish Parliament

The BBC’s spending in Scotland is to be scrutinised by a Scottish Parliament committee as part of the corporation’s charter renewal process.

The development comes after the Smith Commission on Scottish devolution stated Holyrood should be involved in reviewing the charter.

The BBC Trust and bosses at the broadcaster will be joined by Culture Secretary Fiona Hyslop, industry leaders and academics in facing MSPs as part of the parliament’s Education and Culture Committee inquiry. 

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Convener Stewart Maxwell said the Scottish Parliament could play an important role.

“Key areas of interest for the Committee are how the new charter can better reflect the diversity of the Scottish audience and influence the growth of the creative sector in Scotland,” he said. 

“But equally important is how the BBC can be held to account by the Scottish Parliament and how Scotland’s voice can be heard and represented in any changes to the current governance structure.”

Spend on network public service broadcasting in Scotland has doubled since 2008 but over half of programmes are still made in or around London.

The committee has written to the BBC to ask it to clarify how much income is collected from the licence fee in Scotland and how the corporation spends it.

In July regulator Ofcom warned further devolution throughout the UK would lead to “audience fragmentation” and would be “likely to pose a considerable challenge to the public service broadcasting system’s ability to meet audience needs in the UK as a whole and in the nations and regions individually”.