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The BBC has spent more than £1.3mn on investigating the Huw Edwards scandal and a resulting review of its procedures, revealing the financial and reputational cost of the affair surrounding the disgraced presenter.
The figure, obtained by the Financial Times via Freedom of Information request, will add to concerns over the hefty bill shouldered by the national broadcaster following successive scandals involving some of its best known stars.
The money paid out is equivalent to the annual licence fee paid by about 7,600 homes in the UK.
The payouts come on top of the £3.3mn paid out to investigate and deal with the recent Tim Westwood scandal, of which the majority went to law firm Linklaters. An independent review was carried out into the BBC’s oversight of the former DJ’s conduct towards female fans.
The BBC is also facing further costs of carrying out an internal investigation into the making of a documentary on Gaza, which has sparked controversy after it emerged the 13-year-old narrator was the son of the Hamas government’s deputy minister of agriculture.
The funding of the BBC is under considerable scrutiny as it enters into initial talks with the government over the future of the licence fee that makes up the majority of its income.
The broadcaster has been forced to cut jobs and programmes after a squeeze on licence-fee funding in recent years.
Edwards was last September given a six-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, by a London court for accessing indecent images and videos of children.
The hearing followed the resignation of the former news anchor in April, after it emerged that a senior BBC presenter had alleged relationships with a series of young people. At the time he was the highest-paid newsreader at the broadcaster.
The BBC’s external legal fees for advice connected with Edward’s employment amounted to £340,843, covering the period from October 2023 to September 2024, according to the FOI data.
A further £70,000 was paid for the provision of additional resources from the BBC Corporate Investigations Team.
However, the FOI showed that the biggest cost was a resulting review of the effectiveness of its non-editorial complaints policies and processes by Deloitte, which cost £958,133.
The final cost of spin-off reviews sparked by the affair is likely to be higher after the appointment of management consultancy Change Associates to carry out an independent review of BBC workplace culture in October 2024.
The review will seek to help ensure that junior staff feel empowered to call out the often powerful people behaving badly, according to BBC executives.
BBC insiders said the cost of internal investigations were considerably lower than those outsourced to law firms, even if they opened the broadcaster up to accusations of marking its own homework.
The BBC said: “Wherever possible we aim to resolve matters without external support, and the decision to commission any review or work by a third-party is taken with careful consideration, based on the specific circumstances in each case.
“We only incur external legal costs when absolutely necessary,” it added.
BBC bosses revealed this week that Edwards is yet to repay the £200,000 he earned after being arrested on child abuse image charges and before resigning last year.
BBC chair Samir Shah told a committee of MPs this week that the BBC had asked Edwards to return the money “many times, but he seems unwilling . . . there was a moment that we thought that he might just do the right thing for a change”.
