Recommendation 3

The BBC remains very confident that it will deliver Across the UK as expected – we are concerned this is misplaced, given it is behind schedule in key areas. The BBC’s initial lack of planning resulted in unrealistic timelines for some areas of the programme, such as moving roles and local recruitment. The BBC repeatedly expressed confidence that it will deliver its Across the UK objectives. It says it has performed well in some areas, such as moving 58% of TV expenditure outside London, against its 60% target. It reported that it had caught up with previously 6 The BBC’s implementation of Across the UK missed transfer expenditure targets and claimed that it will meet its overall target of transferring £700 million of its expenditure outside London by March 2028. However, in some key areas the BBC has made slow progress or missed its targets, and its explanations for how it would get back on track were not convincing. It aimed to spend 50% of its audio production budget outside London by March 2028, but had only achieved 41% of spending outside London so far, from 40% in March 2020, and it had a £23 million shortfall in transferred expenditure resulting from the cancelled relocation of the BBC Concert Orchestra outside London. By March 2023, the BBC placed 27 apprentices through its West Midlands Apprentice Hub, against a target of 50. It similarly had recruited 617 in-house apprentices against a target of 713, with 60% outside London against a target of 80%. Recommendation 3: The BBC should urgently finalise its plans for getting back on track where it is behind on implementation of Across the UK, including transferring audio spend outside London and its plans for apprentices.