The BBC’s Across the UK (ATUK) initiative aims to improve audience portrayal to better reflect the lives and communities of BBC audiences across the whole of the UK, by moving decisions on budgets and expenditure outside London, changing the culture of BBC commissioning, production and news.
ATUK’s overall target is to transfer at least an additional £700m of its expenditure outside London by March 2028. It had reached its phase one target of 12.5% of the total £700m expenditure by June 2023, three months later than planned. The remaining transfer of expenditure is planned for phases two and three. The BBC has achieved many of its early targets, though a National Audit Office (NAO) report found a developed plan does not yet exist to evaluate progress with implementing ATUK and to capture its intended benefits.
The Committee scrutinised the BBC’s move to Salford in 2013, when it warned about the scale of allowances paid to staff to relocate. It most recently examined the BBC’s intentions to transform its business in April 2023, and recommended a detailed plan for how the BBC might switch to an internet-only future to ensure no-one is left behind.
Based on the NAO report, the Committee will take evidence from senior BBC officials on topics including:
• How the BBC intends to measure progress implementing ATUK;
• ATUK’s likely impact on local creative economies;
• Progress in transferring expenditure;
• Challenges for the next phases of ATUK.
If you have evidence on these issues, please submit it here by 23:59 on Monday 5 February 2024.
Please look at the requirements for written evidence submissions and note that the Committee cannot accept material as evidence that is published elsewhere.