BBC staff to pocket Salford incentives package
BBC staff who make the move from London to Salford will be entitled to a generous relocation package including a guaranteed house purchase scheme and up to £3,000 for new carpets and curtains.
The incentives, paid for out of the licence fee, are intended to encourage 1,630 BBC staff on contracts to move north to MediaCityUK at Salford Quays, with most relocating between April and December 2011.
The carpets and curtains offer is subject to Inland Revnue approval but today's broadsheets report that staff already receiving thousands of pounds of “London weighting” allowance will be allowed to keep the payments even when they move out of the capital.
Cartus, a specialist relocation company, will manage payment of solicitors' fees, survey fees and stamp duty as part of the guaranteed house purchase scheme.
The BBC described its offer as a “comprehensive package of financial and practical support”.
But the TaxPayers' Alliance slammed it as “a slap in the face to the ordinary taxpayer forced to subsidise such generosity when they are facing the consequences of hard economic times”.
Details of the relocation package were revealed after an application by the Press Association under the Freedom of Information Act, made law by the Labour government in 2000.
The BBC is moving five departments – sport, children's Radio 5 Live, learnings and parts of its future, media and technology division – to the new site at Salford Quays which is under construction.
All staff must make a decision on whether to move by September 30.