The House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport committee published its report on the BBC today - A Public BBC. The committee has been gathering evidence over the past few months.

This report will feed into the DCMS’ BBC Charter Review process, and its recommendations will help to shape the Green Paper on the BBC’s Charter Renewal due in early 2005.

All 38 of the report’s recommendations are below. Key recommendations state that the licence provides the ‘least worst’ means of funding for the BBC, that the licence fee will should remain the ‘principal funding method’ of the corporation, that the fee should not be top-sliced, and that Ofcom does not currently have the capacity to regulate the BBC. The committee does not support Ofcom’s PSP idea as currently proposed - although suggests further discussion.

CMS - A Public BBC - Recommendations

1. It should be regarded as a duty that the BBC continue to pursue practical methods to improve the enjoyment of its services by people with sensory impairments. (Paragraph 35)

2. Media Lab Europe has been an independent, not-for-profit, international research institute. It would be appropriate for both the DCMS and the BBC to take account of the work undertaken there. (Paragraph 36)

3. We recommend the Government gives serious consideration to the need for measures, and the timetable for their announcement and implementation, to make digital switchover affordable and practical to people on low incomes and those with special needs. Careful consideration should be given to all the recommendations of the Consumer Expert Group, chaired by Allan Williams of the Consumers Association, particularly in relation to providing assistance with the full costs of converting one TV to digital. We further note that these recommendations chime with those made by the Consumer Panel at Ofcom. (Paragraph 55)

4. We recommend the Government takes steps to promote more actively public awareness and understanding of digital switchover. (Paragraph 57)

5. We recommend that the Government bites the bullet and sets out a clear path and timetable for digital switchover. (Paragraph 58)

6. We therefore believe that, notwithstanding the increased number of channels offered in Sky�s free-to-air satellite service, it is imperative that the BBC works with other providers to create an alternative �Freesat� option. (Paragraph 61) 7. We strongly welcome the BBC�s proposals for a Creative Archive, and agree that access to this should be free for non-commercial applications. We look to the Corporation to develop, in cooperation with intellectual property owners, innovative solutions that appropriately balance the interests of rights holders with those of the wider public. Digital rights management is a key issue in the modern media environment, and we recommend the DCMS establish a forum for assessing its implications. (Paragraph 66)

8. Genres such as the arts and religion should not be shunted into digital ghettos, and with the deployment of a little funding, and more imagination, could attract greater success than hitherto. (Paragraph 73)

9. We recommend that online, interactive and multimedia services become a more prominent and explicit part of the BBC�s formal public service remit. The BBC should be a public service communications provider of content across all platforms. However, the BBC�s online presence must have public service parameters and we recommend that these be explicitly clarified in the next Charter (or alternative settlement). (Paragraph 75)

10. We also believe that the BBC�s regional broadcasting commitment needs strengthening and would urge the Corporation to consider further ways of ensuring high quality local and community broadcasting. We also recognise and welcome the important role the independent community broadcasters will need to play. (Paragraph 78)

11. We recommend the BBC publish a strategy for promoting UK films, and should do so in concert with the UK Film Council. We further believe there is a strong case for a substantial increase in BBC funding for both feature films and short films and in
the exhibition of modern UK films. (Paragraph 86)

12. The BBC should retain its commercial subsidiaries, but must compete on demonstrably fair terms with the profits used for the benefit of public service broadcasting. (Paragraph 87)

13. We recommend that BBC World should have applied to it standards of content analogous to those justly associated with the excellent radio World Service. We recommend that the Government commences consideration and consultation on the
case for a television version of the BBC World Service. (Paragraph 88)

14. While both BBC Three and BBC Four could certainly be improved, it will be an increasingly important feature of public service broadcasting to cater for niche, as well as generalist, tastes. They should remain as targeted channels, and not recast as
clones of BBC One and BBC Two, as recommended by the Barwise review. (Paragraph 95)

15. We recommend that the BBC continues to seek proactively the views of the public through audience research, viewer feedback, advisory bodies and broadcasting councils. The BBC should include in its annual report the results of its consultations and dialogue with the wider public. (Paragraph 98)

16. We recommend that the BBC formally and regularly consults teenagers and young adults about their interests as consumers of BBC services, deploying appropriate modern communications technologies to improve the process. The details and outcomes of such consultations should also be published each year in the BBC�s Annual Report. (Paragraph 101)

17. We recommend that the BBC renews acceptance of its duty to provide a wide range of educational and informational programming, and high quality entertainment across a diversity of genres. (Paragraph 106)

18. We recommend substantial increases in the BBC�s independent production quotas for television, radio, and online services and we note the BBC�s recent announcements in this area. It is not sufficient, however, for the BBC�s independent production quotas simply to be increased. Fostering new, distinctive and independent voices around the UK should be a sustained requirement of the BBC and subject to effective, external and independent scrutiny. (Paragraph 112)

19. We recommend that top-slicing the licence fee to fund public service provision by any body other than the BBC should be rejected. (Paragraph 118)

20. We cannot support Ofcom�s Public Service Publisher idea as it stands. However, this proposal merits further consideration in the future. (Paragraph 120)

21. The licence fee remains, as our predecessor committee stated, the least worst way of funding the BBC. While it is regressive and unfair on the disadvantaged in society, the evidence we received clearly indicates that there is no other viable and credible alternative which would ensure the current universality of access. (Paragraph 134)

22. So long as the licence fee remains the principal funding mechanism for the BBC, responsibility for setting its level should rest with the Secretary of State, subject to continued Parliamentary sanction. The process by which a funding formula is reached must be made transparent and public. We do not anticipate there being persuasive arguments in favour of above-inflation increases beyond 2006-07 when the current funding settlement ends. (Paragraph 141)

23. We recommend that the operation of concessionary schemes, for example in relation to accommodation for residential care, be reviewed by the DCMS to ensure that they are effective and consistent and that oppressive anomalies are eliminated. Consideration should be given to extending concessions in other areas of multiple occupation such as student halls of residence, live-in staff accommodation and service barracks. (Paragraph 146)

24. We recommend the BBC carry out further work on the development of easier payment methods, including by credit card. People who pay by instalments must not be financially penalised for doing so. (Paragraph 148)

25. The BBC should report annually on the collection of the licence fee, providing an assessment of its equity, and the operation of concessions and proposals for their modification or extension. (Paragraph 149)

26. While payment of the licence fee by households which actually have a TV is a legal obligation, we remind the BBC that the finances it receives from the licence are a privilege. The Corporation should use a less menacing style of advertising campaign. (Paragraph 152)

27. We believe non-payment of the television licence should become a civil matter. In the meantime, Lord Justice Auld�s recommendation that fixed penalty notices be introduced in respect of TV licence non-payment should be implemented.(Paragraph 153)

28. We recommend that Ofcom�s regulatory role in relation to the BBC remains substantially the same, for the time being. We believe that Ofcom has too many other duties for it to be an effective regulator of the BBC in its entirety. (Paragraph160)

29. We recommend the BBC establish a clearer and more transparent separation between its public service and commercial activities. In addition, Ofcom should be provided with powers to regulate the BBC�s commercial activities along lines similar to those applying to commercial broadcasters. These powers should provide for effective ex ante competition regulation. (Paragraph 177)

30. We recommend sittings in public by whatever the BBC�s governing body turns out to be; except where matters of commercial confidentiality are concerned. (Paragraph180)

31. We believe that a fundamental alteration to the responsibilities of the BBC Governors is required. We recommend that the governance of the BBC should be separated into its two component parts; meaning corporate governance on the one hand, and regulation and maintaining the independence of the BBC, on the other, by formally reconstituting the BBC Board of Governors as an independent body. Governors should be appointed on the basis of relevant experience-particularly in the media-and charged with the specific role of regulating the BBC and maintaining its independence. Corporate governance of the BBC should be supervised by the executive board augmented by independent non-executive directors appointed in accordance with the Combined Code on Corporate Governance for listed companies. This new management board would discharge its duties as if the BBC were a public limited company and in accordance with the principles of the Combined Code. (Paragraph 183)

32. We recommend the nine o�clock watershed be retained, and remind broadcasters it permits rather than mandates the later showing of content aimed solely at adults. (Paragraph 186)

33. We believe that it will be all the more important in the future that broadcasters develop robust and widely understood new means of sign posting programmes that might cause offence to certain viewers. (Paragraph 186)

34. We recommend that for online content, a self-regulatory approach by the BBC should continue, but that this be governed by considerations analogous to those applying to broadcasts. This injunction should also apply to licensed broadcasters.
(Paragraph 189)

35. We believe that the BBC, under new governance and management and with the new business plans recently announced, must grasp the nettle of the efficiency and effectiveness of its core spending on programme production and acquisition - which it seems it has courageously begun to do. It should have done so before now. If necessary it should establish a project board comprising both internal expertise and perhaps personnel seconded from the National Audit Office and the independent production sector to assist in the process of comparing BBC norms, values and practices with those from elsewhere. (Paragraph 218)

36. Our scrutiny must be matched by a new culture of openness at the BBC, and rigour among the BBC Governors, leading to a wholesale renewal of the Corporation�s reporting of its performance, and added value, to the Secretary of State, to Parliament and, thereby, to the licence payer. (Paragraph 222)

37. We regard the area of accountability, and concrete mechanisms and measures for improvement, as a crucial test for the DCMS in its development of detailed proposals for its prospective green paper. (Paragraph 223)

38. Our recommendation is that the BBC should be placed on a statutory basis by Act of Parliament at the earliest opportunity. However, this legislation should not be rushed and should be published in draft for pre-legislative scrutiny by a joint committee of both Houses. Given the current Charter expires at the end of 2006- which may not leave sufficient time for these pre-legislative and legislative processes to take place-we recommend a five year Charter to cover this interim period. In the event that, at the end of this five year Charter, no Act has been passed then the Charter should be subject to expedient extension, as it has in the past, until the legislation we recommend is in place. (Paragraph 246)