[Page 4 of 6] Corp Governance Report
CONTENT INVESTMENT COMMITTEE
Composition, Remit and Meetings
The Content Investment Committee’s responsibilities include approval of programme and product investments of between £0.5m and £2.0m, ensuring that investment
decisions are consistent with BBC Worldwide’s overall strategy and appetite for risk, and assessing post-investment reviews.
During the year the committee comprised five Executive Board Directors. The committee meets fortnightly.
COMPLIANCE WITH THE FOUR COMMERCIAL CRITERIA
The new governance regime for the BBC’s commercial activities, including BBC Worldwide, was implemented from 1 January 2007 as part of the new BBC Charter and Agreement. This has fundamentally altered the governance of the BBC with the establishment of the BBC Trust and the implementation of a
new regime under which the BBC’s performance is measured
and ambitions tested.
The Agreement has brought into effect a new structure of compliance for the BBC’s commercial activities whereby BBC Worldwide and its operating divisions have to comply
with four criteria. The Group must:
- be commercially efficient;
- fit with the BBC’s public purposes;
- not jeopardise the good reputation of the BBC or the value of the BBC brand;
- comply with the Fair Trading Policy & Guidelines and not distort the market
Under the Trust’s published Commercial Protocol
the first full year of implementation and compliance is the 2007/08 financial year. The Group has adopted a range of initiatives to ensure ongoing compliance,
including a controls framework and an extensive programme of training and internal reporting. New proposals are measured against the four criteria, both in their development and implementation.
Under the Commercial Protocol, an annual report on compliance is made to the BBC Trust. The Board reported on the first full year of compliance
and believes the report is a fair and accurate appraisal of BBC Worldwide’s activities and their compliance with the four criteria for all of 2007/08.
FAIR TRADING AT THE BBC
The BBC’s Fair Trading obligations are outlined in the BBC Trust’s Statement of Policy on Fair Trading
and the BBC’s Fair Trading Guidelines.
Annual Statement on the BBC’s compliance with the Fair Trading Guidelines
During the year, compliance with the Fair Trading Guidelines was scrutinised by formal sub-committees of the Trust (Public Value
Fair Trading Committee from January 2008 and Fair Trading Policy
& Appeals Committee for the preceding period) and Executive Board (Executive Fair Trading Committee – EFTC). The EFTC comprises three BBC Non-executive Directors and two BBC Executive Board members.
The management of the BBC’s fair trading arrangements has been accredited with the ISO 9001:2000 quality standard and performance against this standard is regularly
tested by the British Standards Institute.
The most recent assessment, conducted in June 2008, confirmed that the procedures are continuing to operate effectively.
The BBC Trust commissions independent auditors, currently PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC), to undertake an annual
Fair Trading audit to determine whether BBC management has established and applied a system of internal controls which provide reasonable assurance that it has complied with the Fair Trading Guidelines. Further details of the audit and opinion
can be found in the BBC Annual Report and Accounts for 2007/08.