BBC did not lose plot, says Mark Thompson

The former director general, who left the corporation last year to take over at the New York Times, also reiterated claims he made on Friday that BBC Trust Chairman Lord Patten misled members of the Commons public accounts committee.

Mr Thompson was one of seven senior BBC staff who appeared before the committee to answer MPs’ questions about who knew what about the golden goodbyes which saw senior executives walk off with thousands of pounds more than their contracts demanded.

He said the move, which saw Mr Byford leave the BBC with a total payout of £949,000, was part of a move to axe senior executives which would give the BBC “£19m of savings for every year into the future” and he believed he “had the full support of the BBC Trust” to order it.

The committee’s chair, Margaret Hodge, said people were looking at BBC management in “dismay” and asked Mr Thompson if the BBC had, under his management, lost the plot.

He said: “I do not think we lost the plot.”

Read more: Thompson claims BBC misled MPs over payoffs

Ms Hodge asked Mr Thompson why Mr Byford needed an extra payment when he was contractually due around half-a-million pounds, saying: “Why was £500,000, which is for most people mega bucks, not enough?”

Mr Thompson, who said he did not believe there was any “favouritism” in deciding pay-offs, said the payment to Mr Byford was needed so he would remain “focused” on his job and not be distracted.

He said he had inherited a way of doing things at the broadcaster, telling MPs: “I did not loosen the financial controls in this area.”

‘BBC misled MPs over payoffs’

On Friday Mr Thompson, in a letter to MPs investigating the issue, said statements by the trust’s chairman were inaccurate, information was kept from the National Audit Office and the head of human resources misled MPs over her involvement.

The 13,000-word document came in response to allegations made in July before MPs that he had not been open with the trust about pay-offs to two senior executives.

At their last appearance before the committee, Lord Patten and trustee Anthony Fry told MPs members of the trust were not always included in decision-making.

Asked if he stood by his written evidence, Mr Thompson said “I do”, adding that the trust were “fully informed” about what was going on.

Lord Patten said he took the charge of misleading the committee “very strongly” and said his induction to the job included no references to severance pay and a media briefing he was given before the publication of the annual report said pay-offs to Mr Byford and former marketing boss Sharon Baylay were “contractual payments”.

He said: “I’m in the position in which I’m accused of having misled the committee on something I didn’t know and couldn’t have been expected to know.”

‘Mistake in evidence’

In another development, under-fire HR boss Lucy Adams admitted making a mistake in her evidence to the committee.

Ms Adams, who announced last month she was quitting the BBC, initially told MPs she had not seen a note detailing plans for pay-offs to Mr Byford and marketing boss Sharon Baylay – but now admits she helped write it.

In written evidence published today, she said: “During the July 10 hearing, the chair referred to a memo of October 7 2010.

“At the time, I was not clear which document the chair was referring to and so I could not recollect with absolute certainty whether or not I had seen the memo sent by Mark Thompson to the then chairman on October 7 2010.

“Since the hearing, I am now clear which document was being referred to and I can confirm that I was involved in drafting that memo, although I had not seen the final note sent to the trust until recently.”

A trust spokesman had earlier described Mr Thompson’s evidence as “bizarre” and said the organisation rejected “the suggestion that Lord Patten and Mr Fry misled the PAC”.

Rob Wilson, Conservative MP for Reading East, said anyone shown to have misled parliament without proper justification should resign immediately or be sacked.

He said: “Thompson’s allegations have blown a hole in Lord Patten’s argument that the trust was only responsible for ‘strategy’ and had no operational involvement in executive payoffs. That in any case is the excuse trotted out by failing boards in many walks of life.

“More fundamentally, Thompson is alleging that Patten has given a false account to the public about his knowledge and involvement of the pay-offs issue for the last several months. It is not good enough for Lord Patten to dismiss Mr Thompson’s allegations as ‘bizarre’.

“He must urgently shore up confidence in his position and he can only do so by answering each of the specific allegations made by Mark Thompson. The cloud gathering over his position will only darken if he fails to do so.”

Savile investigation

On Friday, Channel 4 News door-stepped Mr Thompson to ask him what he knew about the aborted Newsnight investigation into Jimmy Savile.

Mr Thompson was cleared by the Pollard inquiry, which concluded that he had never been told about allegations of abuse by Savile.

Read more: Thompson on Savile - 'I've nothing to hide' - video

Speaking in New York on camera for the first time, Mr Thompson admitted that he did have a conversation with Helen Boaden about the investigation into Jimmy Savile.v

He told reporter Miles Goslett: “Let’s be clear, there was a very brief conversation between Helen Boaden and myself… we had slightly different recollections about this conversation.

“Nick Pollard knows he considered this fact and decided at the end of his investigation that he had no reason to doubt my version of events… that is what happened.”

Mr Thompson added: “The key thing is this was a conversation about an investigation that she thought had failed.”