Despite losing out to Entwistle for the top post, the BBC's surer-footed chief operating officer Caroline Thomson offered to hold her rival's hand until she found another job – with no pay-off. This was rejected by Entwistle, who almost immediately made her redundant, incurring a contractual redundancy pay-off of £670,000. I am told this was with Patten's blessing, even at his behest. A few days later, the Savile scandal hit. Had Thomson stayed, she might well have averted the annus horribilis, having successfully handled previous BBC crises.
Patten's choice of Entwistle, unanimously supported by the trust, was itself a disastrous misjudgement, exposed by Entwistle's failure to show leadership during the Savile affair — and leaving him to twist in the wind. Of course, big pay-offs have corroded public trust in the BBC. But shrill criticism from MPs in this wretched story has ignored some inconvenient truths — much as politicians sometimes accuse the BBC of doing in its reporting of their affairs.
Byford earned £475,000 per year, which entitled him to his £1million pay-off. His salary was precisely why Thompson made him redundant. He wanted to send a credible signal to licence-payers about cost-cutting. What MPs may not know is that it was Byford who offered himself up for redundancy in the first place. Quite a noble act when you consider just how much Byford loved the BBC, how BBC values were the calcium in his bones, and how valued he was in turn.
Besides leading coverage of the Olympics, the royal wedding, and being responsible for regional reorganisation, Byford also headed BBC journalism. That's why Thompson at first resisted Byford's offer: he feared a wheel might come off.
As we now know, two wheels came off: first Newsnight discarded the Savile story soon after Byford went, exposing the BBC to damaging (and false) allegations that it was covering up its dirty corporate washing; then Newsnight tried to redeem itself with a report that led to the Conservative peer Lord McAlpine being falsely accused of child abuse. Had Byford stayed, I doubt this would have happened.
Yes, the BBC lost the plot over pay, but perspective is also needed. By 2016, £92 million will have been saved by a 25 per cent cut in senior managers. Pay-offs to managers not required to work their notice are a fraction of that sum — and manifestly not worth the damage to the BBC from the loss of Byford, the appointment of Entwistle and Patten's unworthy shot at Thompson.
Has the BBC's annus horribilis left its governance structure broken? Not necessarily. For all the trust's serpentine weavings, its chairman is a doughty defender of its independence from political interference and seems to get on well with the new director-general, Lord Hall. "I love the BBC," says Patten.
All the more reason why its guardians shouldn't play fast and loose with BBC values to protect their reputations.
John Ware was a BBC 'Panorama' reporter from 1986-2012
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