The age of reform at the BBC is not over yet, according to director general Tony Hall, who used the publication of the corporation’s annual report to signpost further changes over the next 12 months.

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Hall said “good progress” had been made in reshaping the BBC but “there is more to do”.

After elevating Charlotte Moore to director of content last week, Hall said his restructure would “make life simpler and more creative” because of her strategic oversight across BBC Television’s main channels.

He branded Moore a “very subtle creative thinker” but revealed he plans to recruit a commercial aide to prevent her being overwhelmed by the operational elements of the new position.

The business aide is expected to replace the role previously occupied by Bal Samra, who now reports directly to new deputy director general Anne Bulford.

Hall said the executive reshuffle was “part of how we are reforming the whole of our organisation to meet not just the challenges of today, but of tomorrow”, and pointed to “a big year ahead”.

Planning for cuts

Moore is understood to have told senior TV execs that she will confi rm in September how the corporation will make 20% of cuts.

There also remains a lot of speculation that further changes are to come, with reports that director of radio Helen Boaden could leave towards the end of the year, potentially paving the way to a combined TV and radio unit.

Hall refused to rule out that the two may be brought together by Christmas.

“I can’t make any guarantees about what structural changes I’m going to make,” he said. “There’s all sorts of rumours flying around. You know this place well enough to know it is always a kind of rumour factory”.

But he was very clear that he believes “fundamentally” in radio, citing his decision to move Radio 5 Live into Boaden’s division last week because “I felt it should be in the home of radio”.

The annual report also emphasised the role of partnerships, with a Partnership Framework accompanying the 11-year charter and agreement from January.

Next year, the BBC is launching the Ideas Service, a digital platform for curated arts, culture, science and history content from the BBC and third-party organisations, which will be led by Purnell.

It will kick off with New Age of Wonder, a project linking universities, museums, schools and societies from across the science and engineering communities on an online platform.

Hall is confident that the recent charter renewal agreement will not be affected by Theresa May taking over as prime minister.

“We’ve made a huge amount of progress on the charter working with John Whittingdale and the DCMS [Department of Culture, Media and Sport] and I’m hopeful that we can get that out as soon as we are able” he said. “The government, including DCMS and John Whittingdale, have been behind the white paper.

ANNUAL REPORT: WHAT ELSE WE LEARNED

NEWS CHANNEL

Director general Tony Hall has confirmed that the BBC News Channel is safe despite the need for James Harding’s news division to save around £80m by 2022.

BULLYING

The number of bullying complaints has fallen year-on-year since 2013/14, when there were 88 reported complaints. In 2015/16, the BBC received 41 formal complaints of bullying or harassment. Of those, one was a sexual harassment claim.

WHISTLEBLOWING

The BBC identified that some complaints and issues were difficult to raise through the usual internal HR channels and has introduced an external and confidential service for people to report concerns over malpractice at work. Over the past financial year, the BBC received 31 whistleblowing allegations, up from 20 the previous year.

PAY BILL

The BBC’s annual staff pay bill rose from £1.16bn to £1.2bn in 2015/16, despite a reduction in headcount and mounting pressure to cut costs. The salary bill for senior executives also rose from £3.6m to £3.7m, with headcount reduced by just 54, from 18,974 to 18,920, in the year to the end of March.

DIVERSITY

The BBC made no progress in improving the diversity of its most senior leaders last year.

In March 2015, some 9.2% of its top staff came from BAME backgrounds, and that figure was exactly the same in March 2016. The BBC’s target is to hit 10% by 2017. There was some improvement among all staff, with 13.4% coming from a BAME background, a slight increase from 13.1% in 2015, but shy of the 14.2% target for 2017.

We’ve had good, hard, tough, difficult negotiations, but we’ve got to a place which I think is right and the government thinks is right as a whole. I have no reason to think that Theresa May won’t think it’s right.”

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