BBC Spends £400k Educating Journos' Kids

The BBC spends £400k a year on the school fees of the children of ten of its foreign-based journalists.

Figures disclosed to the Daily Mail under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 confirm that between 1st April 2023 and mid-March 2024 the national broadcaster spent £398,307 on the school fees of twenty children, which works out at just shy of £20,000 per child.

In its response, the BBC said: "The BBC's Policy is to only contribute towards school fees when staff are seconded outside of their home country for a temporary period of time (usually for a minimum period of two years) and there is not adequate local state education available.

"Where this is the case the BBC will contribute towards the costs of school fees for children between the ages of four and eighteen.

"No fees are paid for UK based staff. We do not make any payments to staff for domestic/ UK private school fees. This does not form part of the UK relocation package."

John O'Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "Licence fee payers will be fuming that they're forking out for school fees.

"But bosses at the Beeb should remember that this is only an issue because their funding model relies on coercion, where taxpayers have no choice about whether to cough up the cash.

"It is long past time that the government axed the hated TV tax and put the BBC on a subscription model."

The BBC said that there are strict criteria and the payments are only made in exceptional cases.

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