Recommendation 6

The BBC’s lack of adequate monitoring of the World Service meant it was unable to assess its performance when implementing savings programmes. The BBC’s monitoring of its World Service savings programmes to date has focused primarily on financial metrics – for example the amount saved against targets. However, it did not set or monitor clear non-financial performance metrics which would have allowed it to assess the impact of its savings programmes on critical areas of delivery such as the amount of content it produced or the quality of that content. This means that senior leaders were unable to assess whether the savings programmes were performing in line with expectations or identify areas of concern and intervene quickly to improve performance. In addition, it means the BBC is unable to learn lessons with regards to the impact of its World Service savings programmes on the service it provides and use this to make better-informed choices going forwards. The BBC believes it has already begun to make changes to allow it to carry out better monitoring of the World Service going forwards. recommendation In its response to this report, the BBC should set out how it plans to set, monitor and report non-financial metrics in its World Service savings programmes going forwards. 6 1 The future of the BBC World Service Introduction