Anger as BBC axes 2,500 jobs

Updated 10.06 Thu Oct 18 2007

Keywords: BBC

BBC bosses are to axe 2,500 jobs with staff in news, TV production and factual programmes hardest hit by the cuts.

The famous Television Centre in Shepherd's Bush, west London, is also to be sold off as part of radical plans to plug a £2 billion funding gap.

The National Union of Journalists and the broadcasting workers union Bectu has warned of industrial action over the job cuts

Details of the drastic reduction in spending are being given to staff at a series of briefings across the country.

The BBC is to create some new jobs and to offer re-deployment to some of its staff so the net loss of jobs will be 1,800.

Director general Mark Thompson met senior union leaders in London earlier to explain his proposals.

Union sources said they had not heard anything that removed their fears about the implications for the BBC about the cuts.

One official said he believed the BBC will send out thousands of letters on Friday seeking volunteers for redundancy.

The National Union of Journalists and the broadcasting workers union Bectu has warned of industrial action over the job cuts.

The unions will meet later to decide their reaction to the news but some officials believe industrial action will be "inevitable".

Gerry Morrissey, general secretary of Bectu, said after meeting Mr Thompson that unions were willing to negotiate with the BBC to help make savings.

But he warned that strike action was "100 per cent guaranteed" if the BBC went ahead with predicted voluntary redundancies.

He said: "We're saying we want to enter a meaningful dialogue with the BBC.

"That meaningful dialogue cannot take place against the background of the BBC writing out to people, saying come and collect your redundancy cheques.

"If they go ahead with that then strike action, I believe, is 100 per cent guaranteed. If they pull back from that position, sit down around the table, agree a national framework with the unions, then I believe that this matter can be negotiated properly.

"That's in the best interests of the staff, the best interest interests of the licence payer, and at the end of the day the best interests of BBC management as well."

BBC Trust chairman Sir Michael Lyons said that the trustees would be making sure that the cuts would not damage the quality or "distinctiveness" of the BBC.

He also pledged there would be no increase in repeats on prime-time BBC1.