Accountancy firm PwC on Tuesday said there is “no gender bias” regarding how the BBC pays its employees, but noted that the way the corporation decides pay in general is “far from perfect”.
The auditor’s report found that there was a 6.8% gender pay gap among on-air journalists earning more than £150,000 (Rs 1.34 crore) a year. Last year, a report by the media organisation found that two-thirds of the employees who earned more than £150,000 annually were male.
PwC also criticised the media organisation for decision-making “anomalies for both men and women” that had created problems, including a “lack of clarity and openness”.
“We have found that the BBC has a set of pay arrangements for this group which lack a consistent evaluation and governance framework,” PwC said. “This is not uncommon for a highly skilled and diverse group of this type, but it falls below the high standards that the BBC sets for itself and which the licence fee paying public expect.”
BBC Director General Tony Hall said that the report showed that the organisation had “real and important issues to tackle” and that he was determined to set things right, BBC reported.
Six top male journalists at the BBC agreed to take pay cuts, it was announced on January 26, two weeks after the organisation’s China editor Carrie Gracie stepped down from her post alleging unequal compensation with male colleagues.
“I am not asking for more money,” Gracie had said. “I believe I am very well paid already – especially as someone working for a publicly funded organisation. I simply want the BBC to abide by the law and value men and women equally.”
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