'Baffling' BBC splashes out £25m on consultants

BBC CHIEFS have splashed out more than £25million on outside management consultants in the past five years, despite the Corporation employing a vast army of highly paid senior managers.

- EXCLUSIVE BY MATTHEW DAVIS

Figures show the licence fee-funded broadcaster handed £25.4m to consultancy firms between 2021 and 2025 for advice on strategy, finance, staffing and technology.

The spending means that millions of pounds from households paying the soon to be £180per-year licence fee ended up in the pockets of City advisory firms rather than going towards creating TV shows.

Critics of the Corporation have attacked the spending on managers by pointing to the fact that the BBC already has a vast internal management structure overseeing its operations.

The latest official figures show that it employed 236 senior managers, all of whom were paid more than £100,000, of which the top five had salaries in excess of £350,000 per year.

At the top of the BBC's executive committee sat the currently vacant post of Director-General, with an annual salary of £540,000.