From the BBC Trust to Ofcom: an assessment of the changes to the governance of the BBC (original) (raw)

This paper addresses changes to the governance of the BBC following the completion of the Royal Charter that took effect in January 2017. Ofcom took over from the BBC Trust as the BBC’s main regulator in April 2017, which brought to an end the BBC Trust’s ten-year period as the Corporation’s regulator. From early on in the Charter Review process (2015–2016) it became clear that there was little will for the Trust to continue from any of the interested parties. Indeed, Rona Fairhead, who was the final chair of the Trust, went as far as signalling that the Trust should be wound up, so removing herself from a job (Fairhead, 2015). While a range of alternative governance arrangements were considered, it was decided by the Government that Ofcom would be given an expanded role and become the sole regulator of the BBC. In so doing, the Government has created what amounts to a ‘super regulator’ as Ofcom now has responsibility for telecommunications, broadband, post, all commercial radio and television broadcasting in the UK, and the BBC. This paper will analyse and assess the impact of the changes for the BBC at the precise level of technical regulation, outlining the new arrangements between Ofcom and the BBC’s unitary board for the Trust’s previous remit: setting strategy; ensuring value for money; handling complaints; and assessing performance. Utilising a qualitative documentary analysis approach, the paper covers the interim period from September 2016 to March 2017 during which Ofcom carried out a number of consultations on how it would interpret its new role, and on developments following the commencement of Ofcom as the BBC’s regulator. Underlining the sheer scale of the work involved in taking on the role of BBC regulator, the paper will outline that as late as March 2017 Ofcom had published scant information only on how it would regulate the performance of BBC services (Ofcom, 2017). By that point Ofcom had simply stated that it was “currently developing a set of tools to regulate the BBC’s performance” (Ofcom, 2016), including on the area of distinctiveness which proved so controversial during the Charter Review. In this paper a communications policy analysis approach will be applied to set the political-economic context for these governance changes in order to provide an analysis of how these governance arrangements sit within the Government’s wider approach to public service media.