Ex BBC DG George Entwistle Pay Off

GAC said:
he quit ffs, he should be getting sod all.

really getting sick of people claiming to be in the know about how exec pay works and saying it like it should excuse idiotic pay outs like this.

you walk out on of a job you shouldnt be getting anything let alone a years pay as a golden hand shake. now if you get let go i can accept you will get something but to have a clause in your contract that says you can work less than 3 months, quit and get a 12 months pay is just bonkers.

this falls in to the same half arsed contracts the government draws up on deals where the price can double and they still pay it. i have the view that a lot of the so called experts and highly educated idiots haven't gotten a clue when it comes to drawing up contracts and just sign off anything they want for there friends.

and just to add more idiocy to this, the guy was hired by chris patton, he said he wanted him, so in my view patton should be up for the high jump as well. no one else knew the guy untill patton told them who he wanted. sounds yet again like jobs for the boys.
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Hooray, some common sense
 
Dolph said:
Having said that, I'm not sure Entwistle did anything wrong apart from failing to immediately start suspending people and programs when the truth came to light. With the size and scope of the BBC, one employee cannot be expected to be accountable for everything in the way this seems to have been done.
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Failure of oversight basically. He was unaware of Newsnight, a programme already under pressure, was running a story that could have serious consequences. He was then unaware of a Guardian article the following day saying that Newsnight had got it completely wrong. For the head of a major media organisation he seemed to be blissfully unaware of what was going on in the media world.

Stretch said:
Why not just ask them to sign a compromise agreement waving their rights as part of the initial contract.
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Would you waive your employment rights for no compensation? I know I wouldn't.
 
This highlights what I've been saying for a while about executive rewards for failure. While I have some sympathy for him that the Saville scandal broke just after he was appointed, the Newsnight thing was a disgrace and as editor-in-chief he was responsible for that awful mistake, yet walks away with £450k?
 
1) Jimmy Saville and many other people in the 60s and 70s touch up a bunch of kids.
2) People cover it up.
3) ??????????
4) George Entwhistle walks off with £450k.

Truth is stranger than fiction.
 
GAC said:
you walk out on of a job you shouldnt be getting anything let alone a years pay as a golden hand shake. now if you get let go i can accept you will get something but to have a clause in your contract that says you can work less than 3 months, quit and get a 12 months pay is just bonkers.
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Well, this is the big thing that is the issue as it happens. It's not really the pay out he got, but the pay out he got for doing 54 days worth of work.

The payout for waiving rights is completely logical, and a large number of companies have one. It's becoming rarer now a days due to media backlash, but still.

That it happened after 54 days is arguably the big thing that I'd question about this above anything else.

kd
 
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It's right that he resigned but I do agree that he is a scapegoat.

The BBC needs a thorough clean up at top level and with senior management for news. The whole pantomime has been shambolic.
 
King Damager said:
Well, this is the big thing that is the issue as it happens. It's not really the pay out he got, but the pay out he got for doing 54 days worth of work.

The payout for waiving rights is completely logical, and a large number of companies have one. It's becoming rarer now a days due to media backlash, but still.

That it happened after 54 days is arguably the big thing that I'd question about this above anything else.

kd
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He'd worked at the BBC for 20+ years, he was only DG for 54 days. I assure you the size of the payout is the issue here, especially if it's the case that he was only entitled to 6 month's pay.
 
Judgeneo said:
Apparently he was only contractually entitled to 6 months pay?
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Correct but if he was sacked then i can understand being paid off as it happens everywhere, for example football, but again I don't think it is right, but the thing with the DG is that he resigned, if I are anybody on here resigned from their job I doubt you would be getting a 6 or 12 month pay off. Correct me if I am wrong.
 
Arazi said:
Correct but if he was sacked then i can understand being paid off as it happens everywhere, for example football, but again I don't think it is right, but the thing with the DG is that he resigned, if I are anybody on here resigned from their job I doubt you would be getting a 6 or 12 month pay off. Correct me if I am wrong.
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For a lot of managerial and professional roles, a forced resignation can often be accompanied by a payment, a so-called graceful exit. Managers usually agree to do this because it allows them to lay the blame entirely at the feet of certain individuals without risking further legal action and draws a line under the issue.
 
Right. Sod it. Let us actually look some stuff up.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/annualreport/2012/exec/governance/remuneration/

So, Mark Thompson (previous DG) got £622k in 2011/2012. Or was at least set to receive that amount. George, as a director of Vision got £261k.

£450k works out at about 72% of the 622k that Thompson got. Either Entwistle joined mid year (at a guess 70% through the year, and so that's his salary, or, if the same reduction from 2010/2011 was applied to the DG's salary then arguably he'd be on about £465k for a year.

His current salary we can't really know at the moment. Frankly I doubt we'll truly know until the annual report next year, by which point it won't matter. What's more, as I've suggested through the whole £450k being 72% of £622k it is standard practice to state what pay the employee got in the actual year. For Entwistle, the chances are in the 2013 remuneration report, the BBC will include whatever he got paid as being DG + a percentage of his previous salary as director (prior to DG for fiscal year 2012/13) x whatever percentage of the year he worked there as director of Vision.

Seeing as the report doesn't actually have a section on severance pay, we frankly have no idea how much Entwistle is entitled to in his package, and I certainly would trust the rem report much much more than anything the media spouts on remuneration, especially considering some of the numbers they were throwing around with regards to Bob Diamond's potential payout. (The numbers were plausible, just highly unlikely).

That said even if we do consider the fact that he is entitled to only 6 months pay, then again we don't actually know what his salary is (as clarified), and how his pay/reward etc.. might have linked into various other schemes. As an example, considering his transfer pension value is currently sitting at £877,000, there could have been various things where he could take a certain amount of his pension now or various things like that, considering he started his pension back in 1990 where there was a much more relaxed view of regulation in the exec reward area.

For the record, and to clarify on my earlier (that's not much point), Thompson's 2010/2011 salary was much more in line with what I'd expect it to be at about £779k.

kd
 
Monserrat said:
Exactly. I'm only on £13k myself. That would take me almost my entire career to earn £450k if I stayed on that amount. Same goes to anyone who gets that amount as a bonus i.e. banker's bonus.
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It's the way of the world at the moment, a few people getting payed obscene amounts of money for doing very little. It's probably why economies/systems are breaking down there's no incentive to actually work hard and do a good job.
 
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Heads are rolling:

The two most senior figures at BBC News have stepped aside a day after the chairman of the broadcaster's governing body said it needed a radical overhaul to survive a child sex abuse scandal.

The move by Helen Boaden, the director of BBC News, and her deputy Steve Mitchell, comes after the corporation's director-general resigned at the weekend.

George Entwistle quit just two months into the job to take the blame for the airing of a false child sex abuse allegation against a former politician.

...

In a statement, the BBC said Ms Boaden and Mr Mitchell had relinquished their responsibilities pending the results of an inquiry into why Newsnight axed a report last year into claims that Savile had sexually abused children.

The broadcaster also warned that further heads may roll.

"Consideration is now being given to the extent to which individuals should be asked to account further for their actions and if appropriate, disciplinary action will be taken," the statement said.
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(Source).

If the Beeb thought they could keep a lid on it by paying Entwhistle to take a fall after only 2 months of employment, they were sadly mistaken.
 
Dolph said:
Shock horror as yet again people fail to understand the idea that executive level positions often involve the trading of normal employment rights for severance packages to ensure people can easily be replaced.

Nothing Entwistle had done would be grounds for dismissal under employment law, that would be the newsnight staff involved.
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Funny that ain't it?

Why do board members of companies get so much money for their jobs? They say it's because they have "responsibilities" and that ulitmately the "buck stops with them" but once the **** hits the fans turns out actually it's their lower paid workers who are responsible (in the eyes of the law anyway).

You can't command a £450k p.a salary on the basis you are being paid to have responsibility only to turn around and bribe more money out when it comes to it.

As far as I'm concerned there should a level (certainly lower than £450k per year) by where you automatically get less rights than everyone else. You want to justify your massive pay cheque, then prove it by dropping those rights on day one, not by holding on to them and using them to squeeze more money out later.
 
estebanrey said:
Why do board members of companies get so much money for their jobs? They say it's because they have "responsibilities" and that ulitmately the "buck stops with them" but once the **** hits the fans turns out actually it's their lower paid workers who are responsible (in the eyes of the law anyway).
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Look at how many directors quit over this BBC scandal? They're the ones who have so publicly had issues, and chances are this will hurt their career prospects for life.

Those lower down might, or might not have lost their jobs, but ultimately it's not their name and picture sprawled all over the press potentially ruining their job prospects for life.

kd
 
Meridian said:
Example?
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what do you mean example?:confused:


so far Boeing and airbus haven't been found to be negligent in such a way so i can't exactly say "look here the court case" but yeah we're told all about it in the course./ forget the name of the law.

but i can tell you when that airbus went down off the cost of Brazil the police and CAA did come in and size all the records and take the bosses away for questioning, routine thoguh in such events.
 
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