BBC - the price of trust

According to reports on MediaGuardian the BBC is to spend up to £500,000 in training its staff to produce more trustworthy programming. This follows recent scandals that have questioned the integrity of Blue Peter phone ins and misrepresenting our monarch. Surely the BBC should be 'trusted' to be trustworthy in the first place and where gross misjudgement and editorial error has occured on seemingly uncontroversial output such as Blue Peter or a programme about the Queen, surely it can sort itself out.

The scale and price tag of this training 'initiative'smacks of an overblown administrative reaction akin to civil service administrative gestures seen in other sectors such as the health service. If it sorted out its priorities and programme compliance and funding at the frontline then it wouldn't need to make political gestures of this magnitude that may seem like a confidence building PR exercise but are ultimately a waste of licence payers money. Its those who preside over the budgets and procedures who need training ahead of those who have to implement and deal with the shortcomings of the decision making above.