GOVERNING THE BBC

After the most recent decapitation of the BBC's leadership, how do you create a BBC Board that's fit for purpose?

This is day 2 of a 5 day series of papers by the British Broadcasting Challenge, in response to the British governments consultation on the future of the BBC. Paper 2 is on Governance: Creating A BBC Board That’s Fit for Purpose

Taken together the five papers set out an interlocking constitutional settlement for the BBC, addressing the structural weaknesses that have left it progressively less independent, less well-funded, and less equipped for the challenges it now faces. The author of the papers in Chris Waiting.

Paper 1: A Permanent Charter

Paper 2: A Board Fit for Purpose.

Paper 3: A Universal Licence Fee.

Paper 4: A Public Purpose for Technology.

Paper 5: The BBC as Critical National Infrastructure.

Paper 2, on securing the BBC’s Independence is below. The remaining papers will follow in the days ahead. For those who are impatient the full document is available at www.britishbroadcastingchallenge.com

Governance: A Board Fit for Purpose

Executive Summary

The BBC should be governed by a Board of Trustees holding it in trust for the British people, with all non-executive members selected by a new Independent Appointments Commission operating at arm’s length from government. The BBC’s own audience research found that while 91% considered BBC independence from government important, only 43% believed the BBC was currently effective in this area. The current unitary board, introduced in 2017, collapsed the distinction between governance and management, and gives the Secretary of State direct appointment of five of its fourteen members, including the Chair. Recent governance crises have exposed these structural weaknesses. We propose a supervisory board of the kind used by German public broadcasters, British universities, and other major public institutions, with a separate Executive Board responsible for operations and editorial decisions. The Appointments Commission would draw on the model of the Press Recognition Panel, itself a Charter-derived body with statutory protection from political interference, working to published criteria, with parliamentary scrutiny through the CMS Select Committee. These arrangements sit within the permanent Charter and Operating Agreement framework proposed in Paper 1.

The Problem

The BBC is governed by a unitary board of fourteen members: five appointed by the government (the Chair and four Nations members, all selected by the Secretary of State), five non-executive members appointed by the Board’s own nominations committee, and four executive members including the Director-General. This structure was introduced on the recommendation of the Clementi Review, which argued that a single board combining governance and management would be more efficient and produce clearer lines of accountability than the BBC Trust it replaced.

In practice, the unitary board has created four interlocking problems.

First, the collapse of the governance/management distinction. The BBC Trust (2007--2017), for all its operational difficulties, maintained a structural separation between oversight and editorial management. The unitary board removed this separation. The Chair now sits on the same body as the Director-General and other executives, creating inherent tensions: the person responsible for holding management to account is also, in formal terms, part of the management structure. As Professor Diane Coyle has observed, unitary boards of this kind are the exception rather than the rule globally, even in the commercial world. In the case of an institution with the BBC’s public service character, the case for structural separation is stronger still. [1]

Second, the vulnerability of the appointments process to political interference. The Secretary of State appoints the Chair and four Nations members. This gives the government of the day significant influence over the composition of the body that oversees BBC editorial and strategic decisions. The broader public appointments process has been degraded over the past decade, with political considerations increasingly superseding public service criteria. This has led to a well-documented reluctance among able and well-qualified candidates to put themselves forward for positions because it has been conveyed to them that their opinions are unpalatable to the government of the day. This has been particularly prevalent in the media sector and the end result has been a weaker pool of candidates. As Patrick Barwise and colleagues’ international policy briefs on public service media governance document (Barwise et al., Public Service Media: Funding and Governance Options, UCL/EBU, 2024), the risks of politicised appointments are well established internationally. [2]

Third, the capacity of the unitary board leaves much to be desired. Five independent non-executive directors, plus the Chair, is not sufficient to span the broad range of experience needed for an organisation of the BBC’s size and significance. This is compounded by the fact that the non-executive members appointed by political patronage from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are selected from a small population and, while they may bring a national perspective, the pool of candidates from which the Secretary of State can draw is necessarily restricted.

Fourth, the absence of effective accountability mechanisms for Board members’ own conduct. Recent governance crises, including the resignations of Director-General Tim Davie and CEO of News Deborah Turness, have raised serious questions about whether political appointees to the Board contributed to a governance culture in which editorial independence was compromised. Whether or not those specific allegations of non-executive over-reach are substantiated, the structural vulnerability is clear: the system contains no robust mechanism for addressing Board members’ conduct, nor for removing members who act inconsistently with the BBC’s public service obligations. [3]

The BBC’s own consultation response (A BBC For All, March 2026) confirms the scale of the perception problem. Its audience research found that while 91% of respondents considered BBC independence from government important, only 43% believed the BBC was currently effective in this area. The BBC states: “We recognise there is a risk around the perception of independence.” It proposes that all non-executive appointments should follow “a clearly defined, transparent and broadly consistent process.” This is a welcome acknowledgement that the status quo is not working. We believe the scale of the perception gap demands a correspondingly ambitious structural response. [3a]

The DCMS Green Paper acknowledges the need for reform. It notes that the Mid-Term Review found some merits in the unitary board structure but that concerns persist, and it explicitly invites views on changing both the board structure and the appointments process. This paper responds to that invitation with specific, implementable proposals. [4]

Our Proposal

1. A new Board of Trustees. The current unitary board should be replaced by a Board of Trustees of no more than twelve members, constituted as the BBC’s supreme governing body. The Board of Trustees would hold the BBC in trust for the British people. It would set strategic direction, ensure editorial standards are maintained, appoint and remove the Director-General, and hold management to account. It would not manage.

A separate Executive Board, chaired by the Director-General, would be responsible for day-to-day operations and editorial decisions. The formal separation between governance and operations would be defined in the Charter and detailed in the Operating Agreement, with explicit provisions to prevent the overlap between “strategy” and “editorial” that undermined the BBC Trust.

This is not a recreation of the BBC Trust, which had specific structural defects: it attempted simultaneously to be the BBC’s governing body and its regulator, and it maintained a substantial parallel bureaucracy. Nor is it a return to the Board of Governors. It is a supervisory board of the kind used by major public institutions internationally, from German public broadcasters to British universities, the British Library, and the South Bank Centre. The permanent Charter would mandate the existence of the Board of Trustees and its core functions; the Operating Agreement would specify its detailed composition, terms, committee structures, and procedures.

2. An Independent Appointments Commission. All non-executive members of the Board of Trustees, including the Chair, should be selected by a new Independent Appointments Commission, constituted by statute and operating at arm’s length from government. The Commission’s constitutional independence would draw on the model of the Press Recognition Panel, which also derives its authority from a Royal Charter and is protected from political interference by companion legislation (Section 96 of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013). Like the PRP, the Commission would be self-governing: appointing its own members through an independent process, working to transparent, published criteria for expertise and representation.

It is of paramount importance that able and public-spirited individuals, capable of leaving their own political convictions at the door, should be attracted and encouraged to serve on the BBC Board. Current and former politicians and donors to political parties must be fully transparent about their connections and publicly commit themselves to impartiality. The appointments process must be rigorous on due diligence where conflicts of political or commercial interest exist. Candidates should also be required to demonstrate an understanding of the complex issues facing the BBC, including editorial ones.

All nominees would appear before the CMS Select Committee in pre-appointment hearings, ensuring parliamentary scrutiny and public transparency. The Secretary of State would retain a power of veto, to be exercised only in exceptional circumstances with the rationale stated publicly, but would not initiate, direct, or control the appointments process. The Charter should specify requirements for national representation and essential expertise areas, including editorial, business, creative, financial, legal, technological, and security or intelligence experience. Our companion papers on Technology (Paper 4) and Information Security (Paper 5) reinforce the case for these last two: a public interest engineering organisation navigating an era of platform dominance and information warfare needs board members who understand both domains. A published skills matrix would inform recruitment against gaps.

The four Nations non-executive seats, all currently appointed by the Secretary of State, should be eliminated as a separate category. Regional and national representation is better achieved through the appointments criteria than through political appointment, which risks the Nations seats becoming instruments of patronage rather than vehicles for informed governance. The Independent Appointments Commission should be required to ensure that the Board as a whole reflects the nations and regions of the United Kingdom.

The Director-General would be appointed by the Board of Trustees through a nominations process led by non-executive members. The Chair of the Board would be identified through the appointments process and could be selected by the Commission or chosen as first among equals in consultation with appointed members.

The Commission’s remit should extend beyond the BBC. There is a strong case, advanced by the Voice of the Listener and Viewer among others, for a single independent body responsible for non-executive appointments across the public media landscape, including Channel 4 and Ofcom. This would ensure consistency of standards, remove the risk of political appointments across the sector, and create a single authoritative source of governance expertise for public service media. The scope of the Commission should be determined through the legislative process, but the BBC should be its first and primary responsibility. [5]

3. Accountability and conduct. The Chair of the Board of Trustees, supported by a majority of the Board, should have the power to initiate a review of any member’s conduct where there are concerns about behaviour inconsistent with the BBC’s public service obligations. Where the circumstances require it, the Board should have the power to commission an independent external investigation. The Independent Appointments Commission should retain the authority to recommend removal of a Board member for serious breaches, providing an arm’s-length check on the process without requiring the creation of a new standing body.

The BBC’s own consultation response proposes piloting deliberative audience forums, including citizen assemblies, involving “a cross-section of the UK public, reflective of the population overall,” to deliberate on complex issues. We welcome this. Public participation in the BBC’s governance is not a radical idea; it is one the BBC itself is now proposing. Our architecture provides the structural framework within which such participation can be meaningful rather than advisory.

4. Ofcom’s role. Ofcom should lose its current role in overseeing the BBC’s editorial performance and fulfilment of its public purposes, which duplicates the Board’s function and creates regulatory confusion. Under a supervisory Board of Trustees, performance assessment against the BBC’s mission and public purposes would be the responsibility of the Board itself, informed by independent evidence and public engagement mechanisms. Ofcom would retain responsibility for market impact assessments, competition regulation, and the Broadcasting Code. This clarification would remove the double or triple jeopardy currently facing the BBC in matters of governance and editorial oversight.

5. Fallback: a reformed unitary board. If the government is unwilling to move to a two-tier model, the Challenge would accept a reformed unitary board on condition that: all non-executive appointments are made by the Independent Appointments Commission; the Nations non-executive seats are eliminated as a separate political appointment; the accountability mechanisms described above are implemented; and a Senior Independent Director is given explicit responsibility for ensuring a firewall between governance and editorial. This is a minimum acceptable position, not our preferred outcome. What sits in the Charter and what sits in the Operating Agreement Consistent with the framework established in our companion Independence paper, the permanent Charter would mandate that the BBC shall be governed by a Board appointed through an independent process, and that an Independent Appointments Commission shall exist. The Operating Agreement would specify the detailed composition of the Board, terms of office, committee structures, the procedures of the Appointments Commission, and the terms of the conduct and accountability mechanisms. This division ensures that the principle of independent governance is constitutionally entrenched while the operational machinery can be adapted through the ten-year review cycle.

Evidence and International Comparisons

The case for structural separation between governance and management in public service broadcasting is supported by international evidence. In Germany, the ARD regional broadcasters operate under supervisory boards (Rundfunkräte) composed of representatives from civil society, with separate boards of directors (Verwaltungsräte) responsible for administration. The supervisory boards set strategic direction and appoint senior leadership; they do not manage operations. Reforms currently being ratified through the Seventh Interstate Treaty on Media Law are strengthening this model further, introducing a new independent Media Council of seven experts to evaluate whether the public broadcasters are fulfilling their mandate. [6]

The Australian experience provides a cautionary account of what happens when board appointments are politicised. Under the Liberal-National Party government of 1996--2007, the ABC Board was populated with political allies and critics of the public broadcaster, including a former Liberal Party president and a member of the Institute of Public Affairs, which had called for the ABC’s privatisation. An arm’s-length nominations process introduced in 2010 was subsequently undermined when the incoming coalition government appointed two avowed ABC critics to the expert panel and, between 2015 and 2018, only one of five board appointees was actually recommended by the panel. The process was ignored entirely for the appointment of a new ABC chair in 2019. [7]

In Spain, RTVE’s governance has been repeatedly compromised by politicised appointments made through the Spanish Parliament. Reforms in 2024 lowered the parliamentary threshold for approving board appointments, deepening concerns about the broadcaster’s independence. RTVE is now categorised as “state-controlled” by international media monitors. The lesson is clear: mechanisms for appointing public service media leadership must be rigorously insulated from partisan influence, and safeguards, once established, must be robust enough to withstand changes of government. [8]

Domestically, the Press Recognition Panel provides the closest analogy. Established under a Royal Charter in 2013 and protected by companion legislation, it operates at arm’s length from government, appoints its own members through an independent process, and cannot be abolished or modified without a supermajority in both Houses of Parliament. It is the only existing UK body that combines Charter-derived constitutional independence with a self-governing appointments function. The Judicial Appointments Commission, established in 2006, provides a further reference point for the operational methodology of independent selection processes: it removed judicial appointments from direct ministerial control without diminishing democratic accountability. As Paper 1 (Independence) argues, the logic that underpinned the 1997 decision to grant operational independence to the Bank of England applies with equal force to the governance and funding of the BBC: decisions with significant public consequences should be insulated from short-term political calculation.

Anticipated Objections and Responses

“Two-tier boards are slower and more expensive.” The BBC Trust was criticised on both counts, but its problems were specific and structural: it attempted to be both the BBC’s governing body and its regulator, required a substantial parallel bureaucracy, and at times overreached into management. A properly constituted supervisory board avoids all three problems. It governs; it does not regulate (that is Ofcom’s role for market impact, and the Board’s for editorial standards); and it does not manage. The model is well established in British public life and internationally.

“Removing the Secretary of State’s appointment power reduces accountability.” The Secretary of State retains a veto. Parliamentary scrutiny through the CMS Select Committee is enhanced, not diminished. The Independent Appointments Commission creates a more rigorous, transparent, and expertise-based process than the current arrangement, in which ministerial discretion is subject to minimal constraint. Public accountability is strengthened, not weakened, when the public can have confidence that the people governing the BBC were appointed on merit.

“The nations need their own representatives.” The nations need effective representation on the Board, and we propose that the appointments criteria should require it. But the current arrangement, in which the Secretary of State appoints a Nations member for each of the four nations, does not guarantee representation of the nation; it guarantees a political appointee from the nation. Representation is better achieved through transparent criteria and an independent process than through the allocation of seats as patronage.

“This duplicates the role of the Commissioner for Public Appointments.” It does not. The Commissioner for Public Appointments oversees standards and process across the public appointments system; the Commissioner does not make appointments. The Independent Appointments Commission would select candidates for the BBC Board, operating within the standards framework but exercising an independent selection function. The Press Recognition Panel already demonstrates that a Charter-derived body can govern its own appointments without duplicating the Commissioner’s role. The same relationship exists between the Commissioner and the Judicial Appointments Commission: the JAC selects candidates for judicial office; the Commissioner oversees the process. No duplication arises, because the two bodies operate at different levels. The current problem is not that the process lacks a standards regulator; it is that the power to select individuals rests with ministers. The IAC addresses that problem directly.

“This entrenches a particular governance model.” It does not. The permanent Charter mandates the principle of independent governance; the Operating Agreement specifies the detailed structure. If a future Operational Review concludes that the governance model should be adapted, the Operating Agreement can be revised on its ten-year cycle. What cannot be changed without the high amendment threshold is the principle that the BBC should be governed independently. That principle is not a governance model; it is a constitutional safeguard.

Recommendations

1. The BBC’s current unitary board should be replaced by a Board of Trustees of no more than twelve members, serving as the BBC’s supreme governing body, holding the BBC in trust for the British people and maintaining a formal separation from an Executive Board responsible for operations and editorial decisions.

2. A new Independent Appointments Commission, constituted by statute and operating at arm’s length from government on the model of the Press Recognition Panel, should select all non-executive members of the Board of Trustees, including the Chair. The Commission should work to transparent, published criteria for expertise and regional representation.

3. All nominees should appear before the CMS Select Committee in pre-appointment hearings. The Secretary of State should retain a veto power, exercisable only in exceptional circumstances with the rationale stated publicly, but should not initiate or control the appointments process.

4. The four Nations non-executive seats should be eliminated as a separate category of political appointment. Regional and national representation should be achieved through the appointments criteria, with the Independent Appointments Commission required to ensure the Board reflects the nations and regions of the United Kingdom.

5. The Commission’s remit should be capable of extension to non-executive appointments at Channel 4, Ofcom, and other public media bodies, ensuring consistency and independence across the sector.

6. The Chair of the Board, supported by a majority of the Board, should have the power to initiate a review of any member’s conduct, including the power to commission independent external investigations. The Independent Appointments Commission should retain the authority to recommend removal for serious breaches.

7. Ofcom should lose its role in editorial oversight of the BBC. Performance assessment against the BBC’s mission and public purposes should be the responsibility of the Board of Trustees. Ofcom should retain responsibility for market impact assessments and sector-wide broadcasting regulation.

8. The permanent Charter should mandate the existence of the Board of Trustees, the Independent Appointments Commission, and the principle of independent governance. The Operating Agreement should specify the detailed composition, terms, procedures, and accountability mechanisms.

Notes

[1] Coyle, D. (2024), The Governance of the BBC. The Political Quarterly, 95: 20--24; Demos, OurBBC: A Vision for the Future of the BBC, January 2026, Chapter 4.

[2] Ricketson, M. and Mullins, P., in Barwise, P. et al. (eds.), Public Service Media: Funding and Governance Options (UCL/EBU international policy briefs), 2024, Chapter 10.

[3] Barwise et al., Public Service Media: Funding and Governance Options, 2024, p. 11; OurBBC Report, January 2026, section 4.2.2.

[4] DCMS, Britain’s Story: The Next Chapter (Green Paper and public consultation), December 2025, Chapter 1, section 4.

[5] VLV, Briefing on BBC Charter Renewal, December 2025; OurBBC Report, January 2026, section 3.9.

[6] Sehl, A. and Zeitel-Bank, N., in Barwise et al., Public Service Media: Funding and Governance Options, 2024, Chapter 2.

[7] Ricketson, M. and Mullins, P., in Barwise et al., 2024, Chapter 10.

[8] Barwise et al., 2024, Chapter on Spain.

[3a] BBC, A BBC For All: Consultation Response, March 2026.