was the Government's intention that the whole programme should be
realised.
3. On the other side of the account, the BBC must make net
savings on revenue of £2.2 million a year at 1980 Survey prices.
This was £2.4 million gross, less £200,000 for the cost of the
extra Russian, Turkish, and Pushtu services which we had already
requested. To achieve this figure, the Government would no
longer support the Transcription Service from the Grant-in-Aid,
and the following services would be deprescribed: French and...
Spanish to Europe, Italian, Maltese, Portuguese to Brazil, Somali,
and Burmese. According to our calculations, the ending of these
services would produce the required saving of £2.4 million.
(Mr Ridley handed Mr Muggeridge a list of the services to be
deprescribed, giving/estimates of the likely savings.)
(.
Our
4. There was one further condition.
The Government wished to see
the savings achieved quickly. While we understood the contractual
and redundancy problems, the Treasury was not prepared to authorise new capital until it was satisfied that theccuts would be achieved in full in 1982/83. We were asking for savings of £6.6 million at 1980 Survey prices over three years. In return, the
PESC provision during that period would be increased by about
£10 million. This was the best bargain which the FCO had been able to obtain on behalf of the BBC, and was better than might have been expected in present circumstances.
5. Mr Muggeridge said that it was far worse than he had expected.
He was appalled: in effect, it was no more than the Government
giving back money that had been cut at the rate of £3.1 million a
year from 1980/81 and represented no more than a reinstatement and consolidation of the existing capital programme. The cuts were
-
2-
CONFIDENTT AT
totall w
1