Give BBC Scotland more power, says Education and Culture Committee

BBC Scotland should be handed greater powers over commissioning and budgets in an effort to address concerns that the broadcaster has a “London bias”, a Holyrood committee has urged.

The Education and Culture Committee claimed “substantial change” is required if the commissioning process is to “grow the strong, sustainable and competitive creative industries sector in Scotland we seek”. 

It comes after the Scottish Parliament was given a formal role in the process of reviewing the BBC charter for the first time ahead of the next charter coming into force at the start of 2017.

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Culture Secretary Fiona Hyslop claimed the committee’s report “adds considerable weight to the growing consensus for substantial change to the way the BBC operates in Scotland”.

The BBC currently receives £3.73bn of public investment each year from the television licence fee, with approximately £323m collected north of the border.

MSPs said the quota system for production of programmes outside of London is “inadequate in its current form”, labelling it “an artificial mechanism that has not done enough to encourage a sustainable broadcasting and production sector in Scotland”.

Their report raised “serious cause for concern” amid allegations that ‘lift and shift’ practices – which see London-based production companies temporarily relocate a small part of their operation to Scotland – are being used to “subvert the spirit of the quota”.

“We expect a greater degree of decentralisation of and accountability for commissioning and accompanying budgets across the nations and regions to rebalance the concern the BBC has a London bias,” said the committee’s report.

“This should lead to improvements in the way the BBC portrays Scotland and the diversity of Scottish culture and identity.

“It should also benefit the creative industries in Scotland by attracting, developing and retaining talent, thus helping the sector become strong, sustainable and competitive. It is not enough just to improve access to commissioners.”

Implementing this would “not necessary require the BBC to adopt a federal structure” – as called for by the Scottish Government – said the report, “but would require greater decentralisation of decision making, commissioning and accompanying budgets”.

The committee also called for the BBC to provide detailed financial information about its operations and spending in Scotland after declaring that the broadcaster’s failure to produce accounts for BBC Scotland “makes it impossible to associate spending with the delivery of the BBC’s services in Scotland”.  

Hyslop said: “I welcome the committee’s recommendations that the BBC must do more to better reflect Scotland and that far more of the licence fee raised in Scotland should be spent here to directly benefit our production sector and wider creative industries.

“The committee’s call for decentralisation of BBC commissioning and budget decisions is consistent with our vision for the future of public service broadcasting in Scotland."

A BBC Scotland spokesman said: "We've already announced ongoing reviews on commissioning and news provision, and we have also said we want to better represent and portray Scottish audiences across all BBC services.

"As we said in our evidence, we believe the BBC's decisions about its Scottish services should be made in Scotland. We look forward to further discussions with the Scottish Parliament and other partners through the Charter process, as agreed in our Memorandum of Understanding."