No one, inside or outside the BBC, can yet gauge the long-term damage the Jimmy Savile scandal will have on the Corporation’s reputation. But it is bound to be significant.
Many organisations unwittingly employ depraved people: but it is far worse when the employer may be an accomplice to the depravity.
The odious Savile abused young girls in schools and in hospitals. But he also allegedly did so under the roof of his employer, at the BBC’s Television Centre, possibly with the connivance of others.
Depraved: The BBC is alleged to have turned a blind eye to Jimmy Savile's abuse of young girls
After shelving a Newsnight investigation into this scandal, the state broadcaster has at last instituted an inquiry. It is checking its policy on child protection.
This sounds very much like the shutting of the stable door after the horse has gone to the knacker’s yard. In any case, such an inquiry can only scratch the surface.
The BBC has long since deviated from its original charter of 1927, set up under its brilliant, difficult but inspirational first director-general, John Reith. Going beyond his mission to ‘inform, educate and entertain’, it has also — as a result of the third of those aims — helped foster the highly questionable, and in Savile’s case downright evil, cult of the celebrity.
Not fit for purpose: The BBC has many good points. But it has overreached itself
Add to this, the fact the Corporation has encouraged hundreds of its employees and star presenters to take part in tax avoidance schemes, I would argue that the Government should institute a wide review of what the BBC does, and whether its reputation and authority would be stronger if it did less.
First, let me stress that the BBC is a great and important institution. I must also declare a personal interest: I make programmes for it and am proud of my association with it.
Yet it is increasingly like the Anglican Church. In theory, it is a great force for good, vital for the improvement of the nation. In practice, though, it has become too big, too institutionally Left-wing and, as the Savile scandal has shown, too arrogant to deal with criminal activities within its own vast empire.
This is why it is now vital the Culture Secretary, Maria Miller, intervenes. She has four duties.
The first is to order a properly robust inquiry into the culture at the BBC during Savile’s career, to find out how such behaviour could be allowed and who were responsible for letting it happen. If that means ruining some more glittering posthumous reputations, so be it.
The Mail has argued that Lord Justice Leveson should be invited to investigate the BBC once he has finished his inquiry into Press ethics. If he won’t, another senior judge should do so. An internal inquiry headed by one of their own with limited terms of reference isn’t enough.
Slow to act: Does Chairman of the BBC Trust Lord Patten have too many responsibilities elsewhere to do his job properly?
Second, she should address criticism that there is a liberal bias — ‘underplaying’ the dangers of mass immigration, its ‘pro-EU’ approach and the way it deals with religion.
A review has been ordered into ‘the breadth of opinion’ reflected in its coverage and Lord (Chris) Patten, chairman of the BBC Trust, has admitted it had been ‘prompted’ by accusations that elements of news, current affairs and factual programming had been unbalanced.
The Culture Secretary’s third duty is to review what the BBC does. It has a vital role providing services the market sector could not otherwise sustain and without which the quality of our civilisation and democracy would be harmed — news, current affairs, documentaries, and the serious output of Radio 4 and Radio 3. Its role in developing further the cult of the celebrity by churning out a regular stream of trashy and mindless programmes must be questioned.
Inquiry: BBC Director General George Entwistle has announced two investigations into the Savile allegations
Culture Secretary Maria Miller must investigate the BBC's activities.
The BBC may be trying to do too much — and doing some of it badly.
Lord Patten wants better quality. When appointed, he said the BBC should avoid ‘the shoddy and the vulgar’. He added: ‘Introducing people to good books, great paintings or beautiful music . . . helps to enrich them as individuals and improve the quality of civic life for all of us.’
The Culture Secretary should ask Lord Patten — appointed by David Cameron — what he has achieved so far in fulfilling those laudable aims.
reputation after this horror, and giving the leadership needed to make it fit to be our state broadcaster.
Lord Patten has a lot on his plate, which may explain why he was so slow off the mark on this affair, which he called a ‘cesspit’.
He has a second serious post in public life as Chancellor of Oxford University, a role that is far from just ceremonial.
Also, according to the House of Lords Register of Interests, he is also a non-executive director of a head-hunting group, an adviser to telecom business Hutchison Europe, BP, Bridgepoint (a private equity group) and French energy company EDF.
He is also on the Board of Overseers of Sabanci University Istanbul, on the Advisory Board of St Benedict’s School London, a member of the Prime Minister’s Business Ambassador Network, International Adviser to the Japanese Art Association, Co-chair of the India-UK Round Table and the Italy-UK Annual Conference, and an adviser to the Hague Institute for Global Justice.
When Lord Patten was appointed, many questioned why a Tory Prime Minister had given such a key job to someone on the soft left. How would he tackle the institutional leftists of the BBC?
That remains to be seen. What now is more apparent is that being chairman of the BBC Trust is a very demanding job, requiring great attention and rapid responses — and a sense of strategic vision that embraces the idea of change. Yet Lord Patten is just fitting it in around his other commitments.
The Savile scandal has lifted a very big stone at the BBC, and what is underneath is deeply disturbing. The threat to the Corporation’s credibility and reputation is too great for it to be dealt with in-house.
What is happening at the state broadcaster is ultimately the State’s responsibility. That is why the Culture Secretary must intervene urgently.
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