Exclusive: BBC sets aside redundancy cash for musicians

We understand that Simon Webb, the BBC’s beleaguered director of orchestras, has told an internal meeting that redundancy money has been ringfenced from next year’s budget to pay for laying off musicians in the BBC orchestras.

Webb said it was a ‘one-off cost’ that came ‘from a different part of the BBC’ and had already been signed off.

He also admitted there was not enough commercial work ‘out there’ to fulfil DG Tim Davie’s plan of external funding for the orchestras.

Given these admissions, it seems hardly worth the Musicians Union continuing to negotiate with the BBC if the layoffs re a foregone concludion. They should go straight into dispute mode, with all that this might entail.

The amount of doubletalk at the BBC is rising week by week.