BBC to buy homes from staff in £16m relocation bonanza

The corporation will spend as much as £16.5million of licence fee money to help an army of workers move house.

While private companies usually hand out attractive relocation deals only to bosses, the BBC is offering thousands of pounds to all grades of staff.

Despite pleading poverty over a £2billion funding gap, the corporation can afford to spend up to £3,000 on curtains and carpets for anyone moving near the new base in Salford.

Scroll down for more...

It can also find a similar sum to pay towards stamp duty, legal fees and surveys.

It will even buy houses from staff through a third party, facing the liability for losses if the properties are sold on for less.

Employees of other firms who have had to relocate will be surprised that the BBC is to help find new jobs for workers' partners and schools for children.

The mouth-watering package offered by the corporation, which is axing 1,800 jobs and cutting new shows by 10 per cent, includes £5,000 for additional costs.

Five London-based departments are moving to the state- of-the-art Salford site.

They include the children's department, the sports department and Radio 5 Live.

As well as the 1,500 London-based posts which will head north in 2011, another 800 staff already in Manchester will move to new work premises.

The BBC has brought in a company called Cartus to run the home-buying scheme.

At least two surveyors will value staff homes, from which a price of up to 95 per cent of the average will be established.

This amount will be defined as the 'guaranteed purchase price'.

Cartus will then buy the house on behalf of the corporation and advance funds to the BBC worker to buy a new house.

The old property will be sold by an estate agent, but the BBC will bear the loss on any resale. For example, if a house sells for £5,000 less than the guaranteed purchase price, the BBC will have to pay the owner the difference.

If there is a profit on the sale, it will be shared between the owner and the BBC.

The BBC will also be paying for the recently-introduced home information packs, which cost on average £350 and contain details of the seller's house including an energy assessment, searches and title deeds.

In all, the BBC is likely to end up spending in the region of £16.5mil-lion alone on allowances for the cost of the move, which could run into millions more from the property buying scheme if there is a dip in the housing market and homes either lose value or cannot be sold.

There will also be the money spent on the management fee to the relocation company and the interest it will charge the BBC on what it pay for the houses before someone buys them.

The BBC says the relocation programme has been designed to reduce stress delays and problems.

Bosses claim they want to make it as "straightforward and attractive as possible" and say the offer is in line with other organisations in the public and private sector.

The corporation is thought to be offering the attractive deal as it fears many staff will refuse to uproot from London. BBC chiefs say it is important to retain key talent and keep "business continuity".

The package will be offered to all staff irrespective of grade, provided they are on a fixed term contract with at least two years to run when the move happens.

Those who do not meet those criteria will be offered a maximum of £8,000.

Mark Wallace of the TaxPayers' Alliance said: "There is a difference between a smooth move and a plush move at licence fee payers' expense.

"The generosity of these plans may be welcomed by staff, but it is excessive when considering who is funding the move."

Conservative MP for Monmouth David Davies said: "This sort of extravagance raises questions over the BBC's current status.

It is not accountable to shareholders who can ensure value for money and it is not answerable to the public either.

"This allows the management to get away will all sorts of things like this, which simply wouldn't happen in the private sector or in other parts of the public sector.

"It is not the job of licence fee payers to fork out for carpets and curtains for BBC staff. Instead of moving lots of metropolitan media types from London, why not employ people from Salford and the regions?"

The BBC justified the expenses as value for money and not out of step with what the private sector would offer.

A spokesman said: "We think this passes the value for money test.

"We would be living in another land if we thought people would move at their own expense.

"This is a standard relocation thing and you always give people something towards the cost of these expenses."

BBC employees have been handsomely compensated for relocating in the past.

In 2005 80 musicians and ten administrative staff of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra received £3,000 each to relocate just three miles.

Among current jobs on offer, new employees at Warwick University on a three-year contract are offered up to £1,700 relocation costs.