The BBC hasn’t changed despite all the promises – how many more sex pests, bullies or worse still work there?
READING the BBC’s “new” report into its workplace culture you could be forgiven for thinking you’d taken a spin in Doctor Who’s Tardis to 2013.
Because, just like 12 years ago, Auntie, the self-appointed high priestess of probity, once again stands decked out in sackcloth, and dusted down with ashes, as the contrition counter hits 11.
Back then it was the publication of the so-called Respect At Work report, written by barrister Dinah Rose QC, that had Auntie tucking into the humble pie.
Commissioned shortly after a separate report into how Jimmy Savile managed to rape and molest his way around BBC corridors for decades, it revealed a corporation in crisis.
Rose found a business with a “strong undercurrent of fear”, riddled with bullying, humiliating and inappropriate behaviour.
A workplace of “untouchable stars” behaving as they wished and without consequences.
Toxic behaviour
And a staff terrified of raising complaints for fear of being sacked — or simply because they had a “weary sense” that their concerns would be ignored.
A slew of new systems were to be implemented to ensure that the BBC’s Values — “Values” is always pompously capped up by the BBC, as if denoting tablets of stone carved by The Almighty himself — were not compromised by bad actors, like the male stars it hired on eye-watering salaries.
There would be more robust procedures to tackle problems, like a hotline to call it out.
Bad behaviour would no longer be tolerated, declared the 16-strong management board who all personally signed the report.
Yet it was. Time and time again.
Fast forward to 2025 and yesterday’s long-awaited publication of the BBC Workplace Culture Review and you are hit by a strong sense of deja vu.
Same problems, different monster.
This time the chief bogeyman was newsreader Huw Edwards, the paedophile who exploited his position as “national treasure” for years by preying on youngsters, then refused to give back our money when he got found out.
A narcissistic pervert — exposed by The Sun, despite the best efforts of the BBC and Edwards’ lawyers to stop us — who bestrode the BBC newsroom like “this God of news”, according to staff who loathed his arrogance.
Edwards’ fall from grace quickly provoked calls for yet another root and branch examination of the BBC’s toxic working practices.
Yesterday that probe, which questioned 2,580 people “working with or for the BBC”, was finally published, revealing precious little has changed since 2013.
Lessons have not been learnt.
The report admits the BBC is still beset by bullying and toxic behaviour and staff are fearful that complaining will be “career limiting”.
And even if they do complain they remain convinced that senior managers will not punish the wrongdoing if those doing it are useful to the BBC.
These characters who staff believe are “worth more to the BBC than you are” will, as the report notes, “continue to thrive, and in some cases are promoted”.
Separate figures published by Deadline last week revealed that even when complaints are upheld, about TWO-THIRDS of those staff are kept on, even those who engaged in sexual harassment.
Meanwhile, complainants have to endure a “traumatising . . . unsupportive” process and will ultimately be “kept in the dark”.
Indeed, the BBC’s own internal £340,000 report into Edwards, convicted of possessing indecent images of children, was never published and likely never will be, despite numerous complaints made about the presenter by BBC staff.
“Nothing to see here” has been BBC Director-General Tim Davie’s aloof position on its publication.
It is interesting, yet perhaps not surprising, that yesterday’s report does not mention the name Huw Edwards.
Yet cocksure Edwards was very much considered one of the “untouchable” members of staff the report suggests were “known for getting away with poor behaviour”.
He was known to be a “difficult” “talent” long before The Sun uncovered the more egregious examples of his behaviour.
How many more sex pests, bullies or worse are still active at the Beeb?
The BBC would have us believe that the bad apples in its particular orchard are small — “a minority of people”.
But a quick look at its rap sheet since the release of the 2013 report — and its ensuing avalanche of empty promises — would suggest otherwise.
Fawn over ‘talent’
Their behaviours, alleged or otherwise, may be wildly different but for every Huw Edwards, Tim Westwood, Russell Brand, Jermaine Jenas and Gregg Wallace there are scores of people holding them up.
And it is these people — the enablers — that harbour the biggest problem for the BBC.
And these enablers can often go right to the top of the BBC.
They are the ones who enforce the rules, the ones who fawn over the “talent” and then kick complaints about them into the long grass.
Look at the announcement of the report itself, cynically briefed to the BBC’s Today programme early yesterday, which duly trotted out the absurd line: “The BBC understands that the BBC doesn’t have a toxic culture.”
Needless to say that was not the headline other, more sceptical, news organisations chose to go with when the actual report was released several hours later.
So will this review and its “clear, practical recommendations” — there’s that complaints “hotline” idea again — do what the 2013 report failed to do and stop them?
Can Lord Reith’s lumbering leopard change its spots?
History would suggest otherwise.