Ofcom should have final say over BBC complaints, says Lords report

Media regulator Ofcom, rather than the BBC, should have the final say over complaints about impartiality and accuracy with the corporation's programmes, according to a House of Lords committee report.

The Lords communications committee's inquiry into BBC governance and regulation also said "the convoluted and overly complicated complaints process at the BBC" must be improved.

After hearing evidence from witnesses ranging from former BBC chairman Gavyn Davies to presenter Prof Brian Cox, the committee came to the conclusion it wants the BBC Trust and Ofcom to "work together to resolve the regulation of impartiality and accuracy so that the BBC is no longer its own judge and jury in these matters".

However, the recommendation is likely to raise concerns within BBC management and the trust about the corporation's editorial independence.

Complaints about impartiality and accuracy have been an issue for the corporation over the years, from the Hutton report to the BBC Trust finding the BBC Middle East editor, Jeremy Bowen, breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy and impartiality in reports on Israel.

Another recent example was the BBC Trust's ruling earlier this month that a Panorama programme, Primark: on the Rack, broadcast in June 2008 breached corporation guidelines on accuracy and fairness.

It is understood that new BBC Trust chairman Lord Patten thinks allowing an external regulator to handle complaints about impartiality and accuracy could threaten the corporation's independence.

However, the Lords report said: "However, we do not believe that the trust's continued commitment would be undermined or diluted if the BBC was no longer its own final judge and jury on impartiality and accuracy; a situation which already exists on all other public service broadcasting standards matters."

Committee chairman Lord Inglewood told MediaGuardian.co.uk he did not think the recommendation would affect the BBC's independence if it is adopted. "When something's gone wrong, the committee's view was clear that it's not satisfactory [for the BBC] to be judge and jury," Inglewood said.

"It might have been appropriate in Lord Reith's day but in the last couple of decades it's not the best way of commanding widespread confidence in the system."

The report suggests other options, including the BBC Trust or Ofcom appointing an independent adjudicator. It also recommends a "one-stop shop" for complaints made to the BBC, with the BBC Audience Services department being the main port of call, to "simplify the process for viewers, listeners and users".

After what former BBC Trust chairman Sir Michael Lyons called some "memorable cock-ups", such as a trailer for a BBC1 documentary about the Queen being edited to wrongly imply she had walked out of a photo shoot and the Ross-Brand broadcast on Radio 2 – which led to the resignation the respective network controllers, Peter Fincham and Lesley Douglas – the committee said it understood why the corporation had tightened up its compliance procedures.

However, it concluded: "We urge the BBC Trust to consider whether there are any ways of minimising the compliance culture within the BBC to reduce bureaucracy in programme making in so far as that is possible to ensure that the BBC's creativity is not compromised."

The report also calls for BBC non-executive directors to be "recruited from a wider range of backgrounds than they are presently".

"The government, the BBC and the National Audit Office should work together to agree on terms of access for the NAO to the BBC, ensuring that the NAO does not comment on any matters of broadcast content or journalistic integrity which should be entirely off limits."

In addition it said "there needs to be clarity over the mechanism which triggers a 'public value test'". This is the test which helps the BBC to decide whether new services should be created or old services closed.

Patten is currently conducting his own review of the BBC Trust and is due to outline some early thinking about his plans on 6 July in a Royal Television Society speech.

A BBC Trust spokesman said: "We welcome the committee's report and we note their recommendations on the BBC complaints process; this, and a number of other issues the committee have raised, are being looked at as part of Lord Patten's governance review. The committee's recommendations will feed into the conclusions of the review."

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