BBC pauses civil service secondment scheme

The BBC says it will pause secondments of government statisticians to its fact checking service, BBC Verify, and review their roles.

Since 2018 the BBC has offered six-month secondment opportunities for up to two civil servant statisticians to work for BBC News's head of statistics.

A BBC spokesperson said: "All BBC journalism and editorial decisions are made by BBC journalists and editors, in line with the BBC's editorial guidelines, so the statisticians never make editorial decisions."

Those currently on secondment would not be involved in the publication of news or content during the review and the current round of recruitment will be paused while the role is reviewed, the corporation added.

The decision follows a report in The Telegraph which said embedded civil servants had been engaging in editorial tasks and raised questions about a breach of impartiality rules.

The spokesperson added that the BBC "takes independence and transparency incredibly seriously, and we must ensure we are meeting the highest standards".

They said although statisticians' work had sometimes been recognised with their names on the BBC website, "they never made editorial decisions".

According to The Telegraph, external, a job advert for the 2027 secondment said a successful candidate would have "the ability to influence decision making, working with credibility and proactively with customers to share knowledge and information".

A now-removed blog post written by one civil servant about their placements showed a secondee describing how they had drafted copy for the news website.

The BBC said: "While lines they write to explain a statistic may, in some form, be incorporated into copy or packages, they do not write copy.

"The blog post claiming to have written copy is inaccurate and we have asked for this to be amended."

Secondees' contributions can be incorporated into journalism that scrutinises the current government, as well as all political parties, the BBC responded.

It added that statisticians seconded to the BBC adhere to the Civil Service Code of Practice for Statistics, which requires them to present and use data and statistics objectively and not to withhold or misrepresent data due to political or commercial influence.