BBC “Executives in Need” – please give generously

You’ve probably noticed that the BBC is gearing up for its annual CHILDREN IN NEED appeal. The big night is Friday 17 November 2017.

The BBC claims that “every penny you give makes a difference”. But a difference for whom? The children in need? Or the BBC bureaucrats and pen-pushers?

Before you hand over your money, let me just tell you a few inconvenient truths about this great charitable event. Then you can judge for yourself whether you really should be throwing your already heavily-taxed cash into that great, corrupt, politically-biased, left-wing, steaming cesspit of parasitical, self-serving, overpaid, over-pensioned bureaucrats that is the BBC.

The BBC’s CHILDREN IN NEED charity only has 110 employees. But they seem to be awfully lucky employees indeed. While the average employee cost (salary, NI and pension contributions) at our larger charities is between £20,000 and £30,000, the employee cost at the BBC’s CHILDREN IN NEED is a wonderful £42,546, slightly up from £41,270 just two years ago . That’s considerably higher than employee costs at charities like Oxfam, Save the Children, Red Cross and Age UK:

Moreover, the CHILDREN IN NEED boss managing these 110 people (probably all based in comfortable offices in Central London) pocketed about £110,440 of our ‘charitable donations’ in 2015 and £119,934 in 2016 – an 8% increase in just one year. Not much austerity for him. That’s almost as much as the boss at Oxfam who got £137,773 in salary and pension for managing over 5,000 employees across the world, many of them in some of the world’s most dangerous countries and generating and spending income of over £140m, rather more than the BBC  CHILDREN IN NEED’s more modest £57m.

Current employees at the BBC’s CHILDREN IN NEED are fortunate enough to be eligible for one of the most generous pension schemes in Britain – the BBC’s pension scheme, which will give them guaranteed, inflation-protected pensions for the rest of their lives.

Sadly for us licence-fee payers and for contributors to CHILDREN IN NEED, the BBC’s pension scheme is so unbelievably generous to BBC employees that it doesn’t have enough money to meet its liabilities. In fact, it has a shortfall of over £1bn. No problem – the BBC has decided to fatten up its own pension scheme with our money. Over the 12 years from 2014 to 2026 around £905,000,000 extra of our money (in addition to the regular contributions the BBC makes each month for each employee) will be put into the BBC pension scheme to ensure all BBC employees can have a comfortable, secure, well-rewarded retirement at our expense. So, Fiona Bruce and Angela Rippon and others of their ilk can relax in the knowledge that we will be paying for their luxury lives for many more decades.

As for the CHILDREN IN NEED part of this pension scheme, it was also underfunded and so in 2015 got an extra £274,000 of our charitable donations which rose to £298,000 in 2016. The BBC CHILDREN IN NEED would need 29,800 people donating £10 each just to help top up the CHILDREN IN NEED employees’ pension scheme for this year.

Of course, we should support worthy charities. But is it really necessary to allow greedy, money-grabbing, self-serving BBC bureaucrats to take such a generous cut of everything we give? Why don’t you just find a local charity and give directly? These over-paid, over-pensioned, self-regarding BBC bureaucrats are laughing at our stupidity and gullibility while grabbing huge amounts of our supposed ‘charitable donations’ for themselves.

Maybe it’s time to put an end to their party?

And if you know anyone who might be tempted to give their money to these lucky BBC bureaucrats, perhaps you should send them a link to today’s blog?