Dear British Broadcasting Corporation,

This FoI request relates to a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee which was held at 3:15 pm on 9th September 2013.

http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player…

It was disappointing to see the defensive and evasive stance adopted throughout by the witnesses involved.

Named participants were as follows:

1. Mark Thompson, former Director General, BBC.

2. Marcus Agius, former Chairman of the BBC Executive Board      Remuneration Committee.

3. Rt Hon the Lord Patten of Barnes CH, Chairman, BBC Trust.     

4. Anthony Fry, BBC Trustee.     

5. Sir Michael Lyons, former Trust Chairman.     

6. Lucy Adams, HR Director.     

7. Nicholas Kroll, Director, BBC Trust

The purpose of this committee was to shine some light onto contradictory statements regarding huge severance payments, made using licence fee payers’ money, which appeared to surpass and in some cases double the recipients’ contractual entitlements.

It would be alarming if the public were to discover that further large amounts in public money have been wasted on coaching witnesses in order to assist them in answering evasively or defensively, rather than openly, transparently, and in keeping with their roles as public servants.

Please forward details of sums spent in the last year (possibly on consultancy fees, but not necessarily) aimed at coaching and preparing all existing and former employees present today for this particular Public Accounts Committee,

Yours faithfully,

Paul Cardin