Screen Scotland, a wing of Creative Scotland which represents the sector, said it can see “no evidence to support this claim” in the BBC’s most recent annual report.
In a statement first reported by trade outlet Broadcast Now, Screen Scotland director David Smith said he had written to the BBC “to ask for clarification”.
It comes after Hayley Valentine, the newly appointed director of BBC Scotland, Louise Thornton, its head of multiplatform commissioning, and Margaret Mary Murray, its head of Gaelic services and inclusion, appeared before Westminster’s Scottish Affairs Committee on Wednesday.
READ MORE: Culture Secretary to intervene with BBC amid row over The Traitors’ Scottish budget
The SNP’s Westminster leader Stephen Flynn raised a report from Oliver & Ohlbaum Associates Ltd (O&O), which was commissioned by Screen Scotland last year, which found that the BBC meets its Scotland TV quota using mostly London-based production companies.
Ofcom regulations mean that the BBC is obligated to ensure that “at least 8% of the hours of network programmes made in the United Kingdom are made in Scotland” each calendar year.
To qualify as a Scotland production, two of three criteria must be met. These include the firm having a “substantive” base north of the Border, spending at least 70% of production budget in Scotland, and having at least 50% of the production team based in Scotland.
Flynn questioned whether “commissioning in Scotland derives from organisations that are actually based in London essentially putting an office into Scotland in order to meet that quota”.
Hayley Valentine, the director of BBC Scotland, appearing before the Scottish Affairs Select Committee (Image: UK Parliament/PA) Valentine said the Screen Scotland report had been looking at things “through one set in prism”, and the BBC had a “much wider range of definitions of what Scottish looks like”.
In a statement issued in response, Screen Scotland director Smith took issue with several aspects of Valentine and the other executives’ evidence.
He said: “In its evidence to the Scottish Affairs Committee yesterday the BBC acknowledged that any project, from anywhere in the UK can be counted by the BBC as Scottish under Ofcom’s current regulations. Jobs on that production, its economic impact in Scotland, or any potential creative origination/rights ownership from within Scotland are all irrelevant provided it can be deemed to be a ‘Scottish qualifying’ programme.
“The BBC, in its evidence to the Committee, described IMG Media – the production company behind over 1000 multi-hour episodes of Scottish qualifying snooker programmes for the BBC – as ‘a Scottish production company’. IMG is based in Chiswick, West London. IMG rents space within the BBC’s Pacific Quay base in Glasgow, which is how those thousands of hours qualify under Ofcom’s rules as Scottish – it does not meet either of Ofcom’s spend criteria for those programmes in Scotland.
“The O&O report revealed that only two of the 11 suppliers mainly used by the BBC in the Top 15 ‘Scottish’ producers, were companies formed and headquartered in Scotland, compared with three out of four that mainly supplied Channel 4. 80% of the total episodes made by the Top 15 for the BBC were commissioned from producers headquartered in London, compared to only 43% of the total episodes commissioned by Channel 4.
“The BBC said Screen Scotland and O&O looked at the data reported by O&O through a ‘prism’. That prism was Ofcom’s Made Out of London Register, and the episodes the BBC had opted to say were Scottish qualifying in that register. The BBC also said that Screen Scotland only looked at the volume (number of episodes) quota and not the value quota. That is because the BBC does not publish qualification data against the value quota. Today we have written to the BBC to ask that they now publish returns against the value quota, that they make their evidence transparent and public.
READ MORE: Scottish Government hits out as Ofcom lets Channel 4 focus budget in England
“Finally, the BBC also claimed in front of the committee to have spent ‘almost £300 million in the last year on content in Scotland’. We can see no evidence to support this claim in the BBC’s most recent Annual Report. We have written to the BBC today to ask for clarification.”
Smith added: “Screen Scotland accepts that a mixed approach to commissioning is a positive, that there is room for nuance in any debate around how a project is counted as Scottish. Our issue is that the BBC has overwhelmingly met its Scottish production obligations via London-based suppliers – as evidenced by O&O. This greatly reduces the opportunities for entrepreneurial production companies formed in Scotland on the BBC network, it reduces employment opportunities for Scotland-based crew and it inhibits audience appreciation for the BBC in Scotland.”
The BBC has been approached for a response.