Broadcasting unions have condemned BBC executives who received big pay rises and bonuses while hundreds of staff were in the process of being made redundant.
The National Union of Journalists and Bectu said management should have shown restraint while 1,800 staff were being made redundant, after today's BBC annual report showed that executives including the director of vision, Jana Bennett, and the former director of future media and technology, Ashley Highfield, had been given pay rises of more than £100,000.
"In a period where BBC staff have seen their workloads increase and jobs cut, it is shameful that the executives at the corporation have awarded themselves such huge bonuses," said NUJ broadcasting organiser Paul McLaughlin.
"Management should have the decency to show restraint at a time when so many BBC staff are under huge pressures following major cutbacks. This announcement will only serve to disillusion staff further," McLaughlin added.
The Bectu assistant general secretary, Luke Crawley, said: "We have to ask whether these rises can be justified at a time when the BBC is losing a substantial number of jobs - 4,000 since 2005.
"There are definitely fewer people to manage and where staff are being asked to tighten their belts we expect the same discipline from management."
The wage bill for the top BBC executives rose by £708,000 - nearly 8% year on year - from £4.25m to £4.96m, compared with an overall rise of 4% for the rest of the corporation's staff.
Bennett's salary was up £103,000 to £536,000, while Highfield's went up £106,000 to £466,000.
The BBC said the pair had been given big rises because of "significant increased responsibilities they had taken on in their departments".
The BBC director-general, Mark Thompson, also defended the executive pay rises, saying they were benchmarked against other public and private companies and were often less than in the commercial realm.
Bectu also criticised the nine BBC executive directors who opted to take their annual bonuses last year, although Thompson declined his because of the current upheaval at the corporation.
"Despite the substantial upheaval and upset which BBC staff have had to endure in the past year with the loss of almost 2,000 jobs, it is astonishing that executive directors, who are already paid handsomely, should choose to take their bonuses," said the Bectu general secretary, Gerry Morrissey.
"Thousands of BBC staff are being forced into making life-changing decisions about their futures whilst the people at the top continue to feather their nests."
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