The BBC announced today a restructure of its TV Current Affairs department.

The changes are designed to ensure the BBC can keep pace with the fast-changing media environment while continuing to offer high quality documentaries and high impact investigative journalism.
The restructure will result in 31 reporting, production and support posts closed in London and Manchester.
The aim of the restructure is to increase flexibility by allowing programme makers to vary staff levels to manage peaks and troughs in production, ensuring a more effective balance between full-time staff and people working on short-term contracts.
This new staffing mix will mean the numbers of people working on current affairs programmes will remain broadly the same. In addition, the use of short-term contract staff will increase the overall skills mix across current affairs, meaning the BBC can continue to experiment and innovate in its programme making.
Clive Edwards Executive Editor & Commissioning Editor, TV Current Affairs said:

“For the brilliant staff in Current Affairs this is going to be a very tough time and I want to emphasise that the work they have been doing has been outstanding.
“We are committed to keeping on producing the very best programmes but to do that it’s crucial we implement this restructure.
“Because rates of production fluctuate it has become uneconomic to keep the current number of staff on full-time payroll and so the restructure will change our staffing mix. Although this has been a very hard decision to come to I am confident that it will mean we can continue to produce programmes of the very highest quality and impact.”
The BBC will remain the single biggest UK broadcaster of current affairs with 139 hours of TV current affairs planned for 2011/12 and around 300 hours of current affairs on radio.

Notes to Editors

Breakdown of post closures:

London Reporters – 3
London Series producers – 1
London Producers/Senior Broadcast Producers – 8
London Assistant Producers/Broadcast Journalists – 6
London Researchers – 1
London Archivists – 1
London Information Researcher – 1
Manchester Producers/Senior Broadcast Journalists – 3
London Picture Editors – 5
Resource Manager – 1
Operational Support Assistant – 1NC2