Jonathan Ross's return to BBC hinges on the BBC Trust, Lyons tells MPs
Mark Thompson and Sir Michael Lyons: appeared before MPs at the Commons culture, media and sport select committee. Photograph: Shaun Curry/AFP/Getty/Sarah Lee
The BBC Trust chairman, Sir Michael Lyons, today expressed his displeasure at the corporation announcing a return date for Jonathan Ross to his Radio 2 show before the "Sachsgate" inquiry had been completed and published.
The BBC announced last week that Ross would return to Radio 2 on January 24. The BBC's highest paid TV and radio presenter was suspended without pay for three months in late October for his part in the Sachsgate affair.
However, Lyons indicated today that Ross's return was dependent on the BBC Trust's still-to-be-delivered final verdict on the prank calls made by Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross to the actor Andrew Sachs as part of Brand's radio show.
"Let me be clear the trust has not finished its deliberations. All of these matters are subject to the final decision," said Lyons, appearing before MPs on the Commons culture, media and sport select committee.
"There is nothing that has been ruled out from the final deliberations of the BBC Trust," he added.
Questioned by the committee's chairman, Conservative MP John Whittingdale, Lyons appeared to think that the January 24 date was merely the end of Ross's three-month suspension period.
However, the BBC announced the date of his Radio 2 return in a press release issued last week.
Whittingdale asked Lyons if it had been "premature" of the BBC to announce Ross's return, with the trust not due to publish its findings and final verdict on the Sachsgate affair until Friday November 21.
"There are many aspects of this affair that I would liked to have seen handled differently. I am sure in the last week [the BBC] has done a few things I wish it hadn't. It's a big organisation," the BBC Trust chairman replied.
However, following Lyons' appearance before the culture select committee today, the BBC Trust issued a further statement saying that it did not expect new information to emerge that would change its view on Ross's role in the Sachsgate affair or his suspension.
"The trust ratified BBC management's proposal to suspend Jonathan Ross for three months unpaid as an appropriate sanction after receiving the director general's interim report into events surrounding the Russell Brand show," the trust added.
"The trust will not pre-empt its own inquiry, but based on the oral updates it has received since October 30, it does not expect the director general's final report to provide new information of substance relating to Jonathan Ross's role which would lead it to change its view on his part in this incident."
Lyons told the select committee that he was "on alert" for further compliance issues in the wake of the Radio 2 phone prank row.
He also pointed the finger at senior radio executives within the corporation who did not know enough about the BBC's editorial guidelines.
He admitted the corporation had "crossed a boundary" by broadcasting pre-recorded lewd phone messages left by Ross and Brand on Sachs' answerphone.
"We are on alert as a result of this incident as to whether there have been specific problems of editorial control and compliance in audio and radio," Lyons told the select committee.
"This is where we have focused the director general [Mark Thompson] to do more work for us," he said.
"We have asked him to draw together all the senior editorial staff. There is evidence here of senior members of staff not being clear what falls outside of editorial controls.
"I am absolutely clear there are important issues here. The trust wants to be surgical, that's the only way we are going to bring about change to give us all confidence for the future."
Lyons, who appeared before MPs with Thompson, admitted there were "lessons to be learned [from the affair] in our press handling in the future".
However, he denied the corporation had reacted slowly to the problem - even though it was more than a week after the broadcast, and more than 24 hours after the Mail on Sunday splashed on the story, before the BBC issued any sort of apology. "As soon as the BBC became aware of it, it was dealt with," Lyons said.
Thompson said: "I am very aware that this was a very serious editorial lapse. There were errors in judgment."
The broadcast on Brand's Radio 2 show generated 42,000 complaints and led to the resignations of both Brand and the Radio 2 controller, Lesley Douglas. Ross was suspended without pay for three months.
Thompson denied the affair was evidence of a systemic breakdown in the corporation's compliance procedures, which he overhauled in the wake of a string of viewer deception scandals involving BBC TV and radio shows last year.
"The scale of the BBC's operations … means there will sometimes be human error, it's the nature of any human activity," the director general said.
Thompson also denied there had been a period of weakening of compliance across the corporation, saying it had made "enormous progress".
He said the BBC's editorial guidelines were "far more central to [the BBC's operations] than they were five years ago".
"That is not to say we would not learn lessons from individual serious lapses. You cannot have this scale of TV and radio broadcasting and not expect that sometimes we will get it wrong. There is much the BBC gets right," Thompson added.
"This is a very uncharacteristic, utterly unacceptable but genuinely exceptional lapse. It is not typical of the BBC or the way our compliance system works."
Lyons twice highlighted concerns over compliance issues within BBC radio – previously overseen by Jenny Abramsky and now under the charge of the BBC director of audio and music, Tim Davie – rather than its television output.
"We need to be focused particularly in audio and music. That is where the director general is focused," Lyons told MPs.
And Lyons and Thompson once again defended the reported £6m annual salary paid to Ross.
Conservative MP Nigel Evans said he had not come across a single person who thought Ross was worth such a pay packet.
Evans added that Thompson and Lyons were "out of touch" with the British public.
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