BBC Trust director Jon Zeff quits £180,000 job after nine months

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/apr/16/bbc-trust-director-jon-zeff-quits-nine-months

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The director of the beleaguered BBC Trust, Jon Zeff, is to leave the £180,000 a year role after just nine months in the job to “pursue other opportunities”.

Zeff, who was previously a veteran of the department of culture, media and sport, will be replaced by the trust’s deputy director, Alex Towers, it was announced on Thursday.

Towers will be paid £162,000, slightly less than his predecessor.

Zeff played a key role advising the trust’s new chair, Rona Fairhead, who took over from Lord Patten in September last year.

The trust is likely to be dismantled by whoever wins the general election following a string of scandals at the corporation, with Fairhead conceding last month that reform was inevitable.

“The cleanest form of separation would be to transfer the trust’s responsibilities for regulation and accountability to an external regulator,” she told the Oxford Media Convention. “And that’s an approach we want to explore further. I think it’s the frontrunner.”

Related: BBC Trust chair calls for external oversight of corporation

Chancellor George Osborne said in an interview published this week: “The [BBC] trust arrangement has never really worked. I’ve never understood why the BBC is so frightened of regulation by Ofcom … It’s not as if ITV is poorly regulated.”

Towers has been at the trust since 2009, initially as heads of finance, economics and strategy and later as deputy director.

Like Zeff, Towers was previously at the department of culture, media and sport. The trust said Zeff was “standing down to pursue other opportunities”.

One of the director’s key current tasks is the public consultation into management’s proposal to close the BBC3 TV channel and take it online only, with a bid by two prominent independent producers to save the channel as part of a £100m bid to buy it.

Related: BBC3 being 'dismantled' before its TV closure, claim producers

The director, a role previously filled by Nicholas Kroll until his retirement last year, is responsible for leading the trust unit and acts as the principal adviser to the chairman and trustees.

Fairhead said: “Alex has impressed all the trustees with his leadership and his grasp of the issues facing the BBC and the trust and we all look forward to working with him even more closely in the future.

“I am very grateful to Jon for the support he has provided to me since I became chairman and for his contribution during a critical period for the BBC Trust.

“He led the BBC Trust through a change of leadership, prepared the ground for the trust’s contribution to charter review and has overseen the successful delivery of a wide-ranging work programme during 2014/15. I and all the trustees wish him well for the future.”