BBC savings given green light as local radio cuts halved

The BBC Trust has approved the BBC's revised Delivering Quality First proposals after asking the broadcaster to scale back cuts proposed for local radio.

Revisions made by the BBC to local radio cuts include a halving of savings from the proposed £15 million a year, to around £8 million.

But other original measures remain, with the Trust's approval, including the introduction of an "all-England programme" for stations on weekday evenings and an end to "locally split breakfast programmes within Devon, Three Counties, Wiltshire and Cambridgeshire".

Under the approved proposals stations will also now broadcast Radio 5 live from 1am until the start of their breakfast programme, although according to the BBC Trust this is "already the case in most stations".

The Trust stressed that, as was set out in the original proposals, "within all shared programming, individual stations would continue to provide local news bulletins as at present, and would be able to opt out of shared schedules in times of civil emergency or bad weather".

Final approval for the DQF proposals, which were originally prompted by a need for the broadcaster to make savings of around £670 million a year by 2016/17, following the licence fee agreement of 2010, comes as the Trust also delivers its service reviews for local radio and the Asian Network.

According to the Trust it found local radio to be "much-loved by audiences who value the quality of its local news reporting, coverage of sporting and community events, and its interaction with audiences".

In January BBC Trust chairman Lord (Chris Patten) called on the broadcaster to "re-think" some of the proposals put forward in its DQF proposals, in reference to cuts to local radio and the "merging" of regional current affairs programming.

At the time Lord Patten said the Trust agreed the BBC should "proceed with the great majority of the changes they proposed" but raised "real concerns" that some plans "would have a disproportionate impact on its local and regional output".

The Trust today said the BBC has now revised its local radio proposal, almost halving the savings required, limiting afternoon sharing "to a very small number of stations" and offering greater protection for sport and "other community output".

The new measures will also include "much lower" cuts to journalists "on the ground", with "savings targeted at reducing layers of management within local stations".

With the Trust's final approval the BBC will "now press ahead" with the changes, today's announcement adds, "ahead of taking on new funding responsibilities which include Welsh-language channel S4C and local broadband from 2013, and the World Service from 2014".

"The Trust's main focus from now on is to oversee and monitor the implementation of the changes on the quality of BBC output and the progress towards the efficiency target."

Lord Patten added in a statement the broadcaster had reached "the end of a lengthy process", but added that it has been "designed to ensure we can meet a tough but fair licence settlement for the next five years".

"Delivering the changes we have approved today will be challenging, but they are necessary.

"We've listened carefully to the views of those who care about the BBC, and taken our time to get this right, encouraging the Executive to amend plans where we think they need further thought, as the changes to Local Radio proposals show.

"Our focus now is to ensure that audiences notice as little change as possible to the services they know and love, and we will be monitoring audience reactions very carefully through our ongoing programme of reviews and reports."

The Trust added that having assessed the proposals it "has formed the view that the proposals do not constitute a significant change to the BBC's UK Public Services".

"It has therefore decided that a Public Value Test is not required in order for the Trust to approve the future strategy for the service."

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