Recommendation 16

By the end of March 2021, the BBC expects to be more than £800 million through its savings programme, leaving around £200 million of savings to be achieved in 2021–22. However, it now appears that the BBC will only deliver around £950 million of its savings by the end of 2021–22, slightly short of its £1 billion target, as it advised that the annual efficiencies it delivers will reduce slightly to 1.6% in 2021–22, compared to 2% achieved in previous years.28 We asked the BBC for details on what savings would be made in the final year of its programme. The BBC said that it has a good understanding of what efficiencies it expects to deliver in the next year because it has just been through a detailed budget process. It gave the example of a planned reduction of 900 in its headcount as a saving that will count towards the total for 2021–22. The BBC said it intends to continue making savings post 2021–22 and is looking to exceed a government benchmark for areas it looked at of broadly 1% annual efficiency in each year to the end of its current Charter.29