HL Deb 18 March 1996 vol 570 cc87-8WA
Baroness Rawlings

asked Her Majesty's Government:

Whether they are satisfied that the BBC has in place appropriate arrangements to meet its obligations under the new Royal Charter to ensure that complaints made by viewers and listeners of the Home Services are given due consideration and are properly handled by the Corporation?

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of National Heritage (Lord Inglewood)

Yes, the BBC has put in place a range of measures to ensure that complaints are properly dealt with, and these are continuing to be developed in the light of experience. Routine comments, queries and criticisms about the BBC's programmes and policies are dealt with by its Viewer and Listener Information services. A daily summary of telephoned comments is seen by senior programme-makers so that they can gauge public reaction, and written representations are answered by the Viewer and Listener Correspondence section or programme-makers as appropriate. In accordance with the policies set out in 'An Accountable BBC' in 1993, and in addition to these established arrangements for handling the whole range of public comments, the Governors agreed a new approach to handling serious complaints about what the BBC has broadcast.

Since February 1994, viewers and listeners have been able to write to a named individual in the new post of Head of the Programme Complaints Unit. The present head of the unit is Mr. Fraser Steel. The unit is independent of the programme-making divisions of the BBC and is responsible for ensuring that complaints about serious breaches of accepted broadcasting standards are dealt with thoroughly, impartially and quickly. Its primary purpose is to provide appropriate means of redress to licence-fee payers. All programme areas are required to co-operate with the unit's investigations and to make corrections or provide redress on air where that is warranted. The procedure can also identify weaknesses which need to be addressed or provide management with the grounds for taking other action to prevent the recurrence of problems identified.

Any complainant who is not satisfied with the way in which the complaint has been handled by the unit may ask the Governors' Programme Complaints Appeals Committee, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe, to consider the matter. It will do so if in its judgment the complaint raises significant issues of public interest. It will then make a recommendation to the Board of Governors, who will decide on the outcome. The decision and the action taken are publicised in the regular Governors' Programme Complaints Bulletin, which also analyses complaints received centrally by the BBC and gives an account of the work of the Programme Complaints Unit, it summarises each complaint, the unit's findings and action taken. Details of the BBC complaints procedure are set out in a free leaflet, on the letters page of the Radio Times and on Ceefax.