BBC redundancy packages such as Mark Byford’s £1m pay-off will be a thing of the past under proposals being put forward to the BBC Trust as part of Delivering Quality First.

The executive is recommending the introduction of a limit to the amount of redundancy pay that staff can accrue during their time at the BBC, meaning large amounts racked up by the likes of Byford - after 32 years of service - will no longer be paid out.

It is thought that the cap is yet to be finalised, but insiders have suggested it could be set at the lower of either two years’ salary or £75,000. Other sources suggested it could be capped at one year’s salary.

Broadcast first revealed that capping ‘gold-plated’ redundancy packages was being considered as part of Delivering Quality First back in March, with a source involved in the productivity stream claiming staff had been broadly supportive of the move.

“Younger staff don’t expect a career for life any more, but they do expect to gain transferable skills. The package is expensive, and if keeping it means cutting more jobs, they would prefer it to go,” the insider said at the time.

The recommendation is understood to be one of several that has been put forward to the Trust ahead of the public consultation, which kicks off on 6 October.

A 40-page document outlining the broad areas in which cuts could be made is thought to also include the recommendation that network productions made in Birmingham - including Coast, Doctors and The Hairy Bikers - be relocated.

Other proposals include:

  • an increase in repeats;
  • BBC2 Daytime being replaced with rolling news;
  • a shake-up of post-10.35pm output;
  • a significant cut to the budget of BBC4.

A BBC spokesman said: “We will publish our proposals for DQF early next month and are not going to comment on speculation before that point.”

Although current DQF discussions between the BBC Trust and executive board are not expected to drill down into detail, Broadcast understands that other ideas are being mooted internally.

They include potentially dropping the National Lottery, but retaining the gameshow Secret Fortune; increasing the total percentage of repeats on BBC1 from 8% to 10%; and dropping one major drama per year from BBC1.

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