General Chat

Former director-general George Entwistle will receive one year's salary (approximately £450,000) after resigning from the BBC.

Is that fair? Is it a good use of your TV license money?

The chairman of the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee John Whittingdale said he could not see any justification for such a large payoff.

I would have thought that one year was not out of line with the private sector. I think that Tesco did offer 2 years severance pay to their main board members, and this had to be reduced to one year some years ago (because of shareholder opposition).

A reporter this morning believed that his Contract stated one years salary if he was sacked, but 6 months if he resigned.

The extra in this case was because he would still have to appear before various enquiries..........surely c£220, 000 is rather a lot for a week's appearence?

For the record, rather than working their notice period, many people are sent on 'Gardening Leave' with pay, for the duration. During that period, they are not supposed to take up other employment. The intention is that commercially sensitive information is not passed on to other organisations. By the time they are free to join another employer, the information is not so critical.

So we are all in this together?

Why do people at the top deserve more than any employee at the bottom when they are either sacked or resign,

Load of tosh

If an employee is sacked he does not receive 6 or 12 months pay

If an employee resigns he does not receive 6 or 12 months pay

If an employee is made redundant his payout will always be based on the number of years service, usualy one weeks pay for every your served excluding the first two years so to receive 12 months pay as part of your redundancy you will have had to work for that company for 54 years

Roy

3 months resignation notice is quite common even for 'ordinary' employees in certain sectors. 6 months notice is not unreasonable for the head of a large organisation.

He hasn't been made redundant. 6 months ought to be more than enough time to pick up other work. With a salary such has been reported (even if net take-home was 50%) should have been more than enough to save for the rainy day.

This morning the two senior ones in News have "stood aside" while this investigation by Acting DG and Lord Patten gets under way.

Wonder if "stood aside" is same as gardening leave. Perhaps doing the garden not appropriate in winter :-S

Redundancy/severance pay is a legal minimum that companies are expected to pay, and Government comes in if companies cannot afford that (if in liquidation etc). Roy - that is also my understanding about how it is worked out.

I think most people in management positions try to secure deals where, unless summarily dismissed for dishonesty, fraud etc, they are entitled to a payment if dismissed. This is often 6 months or 12 months salary (it was 2 years rolling contracts for senior Tesco executives and Sir Terry Leahy had to agree to that being cut back to 12 months not so long before he retired aged 55).

The BBC would probably not have won a legal battle if Entwistle had sued for wrongful dismissal and claimed he was pushed rather than resigned. But it is going to cost us a fortune if a load of £100,000 plus per year senior BBC execs are allowed to "resign".

There are much bigger pressing issues regarding this whole affair than who resigned and who earns what. Do you not think?

Paula, You are correct,

There are much bigger pressing issues regarding this whole affair

But even the smaller issues need to be looked at including earnings

As the saying goes.......Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after them selves

Roy

His pay was £150.000.per year, it was 3 yrs pay he was assumed to be having,but later recinded to 1yr. but even that is too much.does anyone else recieve that sort of cash when resigning from job? which was a failure. :-S

If he hadn't resigned on Saturday and got the sack it would have been a whole lot more money he would have got.


Unfair Dismissal.

The poor people like us, face to face with the wealthy, become conscious of our poverty.

Still, we poor can be rich according to what we are - not by what we have or have not.

Sue In Leeds, That is assuming he would have won any possible claim for Unfair Dismissal

Still one set of rules/contract for them and another set of rules/contract for everyone else

Roy

Roy it was said on the news at Lunchtime that if he had got the sack he could have claimed more..

Still say he shouldn't have resigned and should have got rid of the Directors/managers and got to the bottom of the mess.

If he get's the money then I'm not paying my license.

Working hard should not be less rewarded than walking away from the job. And hard work is rarely easy.

Entwistle had had a great career in the BBC before being appointed to the top job 2 months ago.

He was a safe pair of hands and relatively good value - certainly compared to Mark Thompson and what is paid in commercial TV. The job suddenly became a very different animal after the Newsnight cock-up and Entwistle was not equipped to deal with that big a job that early in his tenure.

He might get another good job. He might not. But I reckon that a payment of a year's salary and some enhancement to his pension pot is fair. The alternative would be a long drawn out civil court case which would involve many days of a QC's wages.