BBC staff are sent on courses to learn they shouldn't lie

 Add your view

BBC bosses have been accused of wasting licence-fee money on teaching their staff not to lie.

The decision to send 16,500 employees on an "integrity" course in the wake of the fake TV shows scandal was condemned by MPs.

Two of the corporation's top executives appeared before a Commons committee investigating the affair.

Director general Mark Thompson is on a family holiday, so his deputy Mark Byford and chief operating officer Caroline Thomson were asked to explain how viewers were deceived by a string of shows including Children In Need and Comic Relief, as well as the doctored footage of the Queen

They were accused of "fighting a rearguard action" and being "dangerously out of touch" with the way programmes are made.

Tory MP Philip Davies asked: "Is funding a training programme to tell your staff not to lie and cheat viewers a good use of licence-fee payers' money? Perhaps you need to look at your recruitment process if you have to train them on such fundamentals as not lying or cheating?"

But Mr Byford insisted the training programme, called Safeguarding Trust, was a good idea.

He branded the deceptions totally unacceptable and said honesty was at the heart of the relationship between the BBC and its viewers.

Mr Byford said he had been stunned by the six new deceptions revealed last week in a scandal which began when Blue Peter was found to have faked a competition winner.

He admitted: "We can't be 100 per cent certain we have captured everything. Some investigations are still going on."

The BBC is also investigating why staff did not come forward to reveal the latest six deceptions as soon as the Blue Peter faking was made public in March.

Mr Byford was asked about apparent inconsistencies in the way the BBC has responded to the crisis.

Three senior editorial staff across the corporation have been suspended - but DJ Liz Kershaw is still broadcasting despite the fact her BBC 6 Music radio show was arguably the worst offender. The programme was prerecorded, but presented as if it was live.

All "prize winners" were members of the production team or their friends, and the prizes did not exist.

Committee chairman John Whittingdale MP said the show had operated "serial deliberate deceptions".

"Why, then, is Liz Kershaw still broadcasting?" he asked.

But Mr Byford declined to give detailed answers about the deceptions, saying investigations were still going on.

Mr Davies told him: "That is a typical Government tactic of hiding behind an inquiry saying 'I can't comment further'."

 

What's on today   What's on tomorrow

Receive our newsletter