BBC managers will not get promoted unless they prove they are helping the “mission critical” drive to improve diversity, director general Tim Davie has declared.
Speaking at a Royal Television Society 2020 session today, Davie vowed to go “division by division” to reach his recently-declared goal of a 50-20-12 organisation – referring to 50% female, 20% BAME and 12% disabled.
However, he ruled out a specific timeframe to hit this target as he wanted managers to “own” the process of “granular, detailed work” of calculating opportunities to diversify through natural churn and identifying talented people to join their teams.
“I’ve been very direct: you will not get promoted in this organisation without us assessing how happy your staff are and how well you’ve done in hitting your diversity targets,” Davie said. "If you are not someone who can deliver on those two things, you will not progress in the BBC."
Days after the BBC Annual Report showed that the BBC had missed its 15% BAME leadership target last year, Davie said: “Senior leadership is utterly critical and the progress and speed of change has been slow.”
He opened up about the challenges of implementing change, particularly in filtering messages down to all levels of the workforce, with those lower down questioning how achievable or urgent an initiative might be.
Meanwhile, Davie was ebullient about the BBC’s ability to maintain its unique role in today’s media landscape – which means taking more risks on emerging talent.
“I sometimes think we spread ourselves too thinly,” he said. “It’s about placing your bets. We’re well placed in R&D terms to nurture talent. The BBC is a wonderful place to learn – I’ve learned more in 15 years than I could have conceived of. I want us to give people a break a bit earlier sometimes. Have we become too risk-averse? Are we willing to take bets on young developing talent early?”
Davie rounded off by musing on how the modern world tests the limits of BBC impartiality, with young people in particular attuned to the idea that questions posed by the media are likely to have a partisan view.
“There’s something about metropolitan-based organisations and the way you hire that can feel a bit distant for the rest of the population,” he said.
“It’s not about left and right but ‘do I feel it’s for me?’ more and more people, particularly young people are struggling with the whole idea [of impartiality]. I think this changes the grammar editorially.
“We need to really get excited about impartiality and finding truth, evidence and testimony. If you’re not passionate about that you’re in the wrong place. It’s demanding. We’re working out who we are as a society. This needs constant oversight and editorial governance, but it’s exciting and it’s what we should be doing as the BBC. I want to protect that.”