BBC wins fight to keep stars' salaries secret

Published on Saturday 3 October 2009 19:43

THE BBC has won a three-year High Court battle to keep its stars' salaries under wraps.

The taxpayer-funded corporation spent more than 200,000 safeguarding details of what it pays on-screen personalities and production staff and how much shows cost.

It has faced intense criticism for the sums it pays performers such as Jonathan Ross, who is said to earn 6 million a year. Another 40 stars are earning more than 1 million annually.

But Mr Justice Irwin ruled: "The BBC has no obligation to disclose information which they hold to any significant extent for the purposes of journalism, art or literature, whether or not the information is also held for other purposes."

The corporation has refused to comply with freedom of information requests from newspapers and members of the public. The Information Commissioner and the Information Tribunal both ruled the data should be released. But the BBC appealed to the High Court, which found previous hearings had not taken its evidence into account.

Jeremy Hunt, the Tory culture spokesman, said: "We have long called for the BBC to open its books to the National Audit Office so licence-fee payers can be sure they are getting value for money. If the BBC was more transparent about its finance then court cases like these could be avoided."

Hunt, who would be in charge of broadcasting policy if the Tories win the next general election, said he wanted to see the BBC "cutting its cloth", warning that if it failed to act on a voluntary basis he would use his role in overseeing the BBC licence fee in 2012 to lobby for salaries to be cut. "That will be a chance to look at the whole direction of the BBC – and executive compensation is obviously one of the things that you discuss as part of that," he said.