25/02/2016 Scotland 2016

The BBC says it wants to make news more relevant to its

How much demand is there for a Scottish Six?

After last year's T in the Park was marred by problems,

what lessons has boss Geoff Ellis learned?

Last year, we fell short, but this year we are confident we will have a

wonderful event that everybody can really enjoy.

And a Glasgow couple who escaped from Nazi Germany tell us

what they think about the current refugee crisis.

"An hour of UK, Scottish and international news,

edited and presented in Scotland, to shape the day's news in a way

So why does the proposal for a Scottish Six O'Clock News

continue to cause the BBC angst, 17 years after the idea

Bosses were forced today to confirm they ARE to run off-air

pilots for a Scottish Six, after plans were

But the BBC's own research suggests that viewers are decidedly lukewarm

Thanks to the magic of tv, Huw Williams takes us

That's all from the BBC's news at six. It is goodbye from me and on

BBC One we can now join the BBC's news teams where you are. Tonight on

reporting Scotland... Things are different in Scotland and getting

more different. But the complaint is that too many stories on BBC One's

six o'clock News simply do not reflect that. With devolution and

with increasing powers through the years for the Scottish Parliament,

more areas of domestic policy are devolved Scotland and more stories

that appear on the UK news are not relevant here. For example, junior

doctors strike coming up in England is obviously not a strike in

Scotland. That is a problem for the audience when they see something on

the main news at six o'clock that doesn't apply in Scotland. BBC

bosses have appeared before MSP is to answer questions and outline

future plans for Scotland. I want the director for Scotland to have

more power to decide the services that the people of Scotland want for

Scotland. No-macro the director general of the BBC appeared before

the education committee to give evidence and he said there has to be

improvements, there has to be a change to the level of the detail of

news and current affairs available here in Scotland. If the

director-general recognises that things that have to improve, who am

I to argue? The paper outlining the plan says millions of pounds need to

be spent to make BBC Scotland's News is good enough to be part of a

so-called Scottish Six. Does the new boss think it isn't good enough now?

To serve the audience? I think the journalism we produce across all our

platforms here is excellent, but there are areas where we could be

stronger and with a bit of investment, we can begin to put some

of that right. The short answer is yes, at the moment, without millions

of pounds of investment, your department is short-changing the

audience in Scotland. I think we produce very good journalism across

all our programmes and the website, as well, at the moment. But I think

it is the case, what we do could always be better in whatever part of

news you are looking at, and I would welcome the opportunity for some

investment to help us with these issues, particularly of relevance.

The union that represents BBC Scotland's generalists agrees. We

have campaigned for years or more staffing for news in Scotland. In

2014, BBC management never really discussed the detail of how they

would recover it the referendum -- cover the referendum and other major

events. This caused problems. Staffing levels were insufficient.

At least now they appear to be recognising that there needs to be

massive investment and we welcome the investment and welcome the

additional jobs. There is some suggestion that the current BBC

Scotland staff could not handle a Scottish Six or an extended news. I

think they could with additional resources. But do the audience

actually want a Scottish Six? I think everybody wants to see a

high-quality production from the BBC in Scotland. News and current

affairs as part of that package. It is important is that we get the

highest level of news output and current affairs, not just about and

from Scotland, but reflecting Scotland to the world. More

importantly nicking sure we cover the UK, cover Europe and world

affairs. It cannot be programmed just about Scotland, that is not

what anyone wants to see. We want to see a proper programme giving all

the news from the to Scotland, but produced here in Scotland,

high-quality jobs, and more importantly, showing what a BBC

Scotland can do. The BBC says if the plans get the go-ahead, it will be

at least a year before the Scottish Six goes on air.

Joining me now to talk about this are two former BBC Scotland

journalists - the Labour MSP Ken Macintosh, and in our Dundee

studio, the broadcaster Lesley Riddoch.

Good evening. Ken, the proposal is an hour of UK, Scottish and

international news, edited, presented in Scotland to shape the

day's news in a way that is relevant to the Scottish audience. What is

wrong with that? On the face nothing. I welcome the investment

that this will mean in facilities and staff here in BBC Scotland.

Hopefully improved output in Scotland. It might mean the loss of

UK coverage of national and international news. At the moment,

we have an hour of Scottish and national and international news, the

six o'clock News and Ben Reporting Scotland. I think we can make

improvements, but I don't need my news read with a Scottish accent. In

the first half-hour, there is often lots of stories in the National

network news that have no relevance to Scotland. There may be

occasionally somewhat less relevance. They are not of no

relevance. If the main story of the day is David Cameron negotiation of

the EU. I would like to hear people from Westerners are telling us what

is happening. I don't want to wait until she has done a national

problem and then have our editorial choices become second to theirs. If

it is John Simpson on the refugee crisis or Gavin in Washington, or

whatever, I would like it to be the best person, the main person, giving

us the news as it happens because it is the most important item, not the

second choice. Isn't that a fair point, Leslie? I just don't know

where Ken has been for the last 20, 30 years. Newspapers in Scotland

have been blending news, international, national, local news

on a daily basis for the Scotsman's case, nearly 200 years. Radio

Scotland has been doing this exact job for about 30 to 40 years and the

planet hasn't exploded. Nothing has come off its hinges. When Ken is

talking about the example of wanting to know what is really going on in

Europe, wanting to hear people talking, actually, it is quite

possible to manage to have that because that is exactly how radio

operates now. It might be a different position in the running

order, but it is more important point. Laura bed might be talking

about what is deemed to be the most important thing in from London

perspective, but perhaps there are fishery talks going on at the same

time which really matter. Perhaps there are energy talks which really

matter to Scotland, which we hear nothing about at the moment because

we don't have our own perspective, our own people and our own control

over what the news agenda is. It is not just about a Scot reading the

news. That doesn't matter one iota, the nationality of who is reading

the news. What matters is the outlook that is developed by the

people who are in control of telling Scots what is important in their

lives that day. Ken, this is about relevance, what would change with a

Scottish Six. It isn't, Lesley gave the game away, it is about

controlling the agenda. Is it not reflecting an agenda to the Scottish

people? From what I understand, what we are talking about is this is

reflecting the same items, or most of them, international news items,

so Donald Trump, or Syrian refugees or whatever, and national news

items, events in Europe and the UK, across the UK, Wales, Northern

Ireland. We still live in the UK, it matters to me what happens in the

rest of the UK. These things are already on our news. When Laura

reads the news, she doesn't do so from a London perspective, she does

so with the impartiality and the authority of the BBC. Impartial and

objective. She has she has a few minutes to something 's up and in a

few things -- in a few minutes, some things are in and some are out. That

is why we have Scottish newspapers, otherwise why don't we read

wall-to-wall with newspapers from Fleet Street. Lesley, there is a

lack of enthusiasm according to the BBC's own research from the audience

to this idea. They have expressed concern it would simply be a longer

version of Reporting Scotland. Their view was that it was of lower

quality than what is produced by the network. Do you think that is a

valid concern? I think there is an issue that if you have always

followed what is seen to be the proper news, and there is a

tremendous power that James Robertson has performed, 47,000

views on YouTube of it, the news where you are, which tries to tackle

that patronising moment where everything that is of real value is

ended and something that is only of local importance begins. If you have

been on the receiving end or the production and that local news, it

is very hard to aspire in a kind of way that other small countries, or

even regions like Catalonia with 11 TV stations, never mind having one

solitary bulletin produced from the height of its capital, or Iceland, a

population of 250,000 people, with 11 channels. That is the kind of

ambition that lifts your head and gets the kind of really ambitious,

dangerous perhaps risky, lateral thinking that I would expect to see

from people who know they are the centre of their world, not at the

periphery of it. Your ambition for Scotland is to have Icelandic TV

instead of the BBC? This is staggering. This is one of the best

news services. One of the most trusted news services in the world,

one of the best broadcasters in the whole world, and you want to give it

up for Icelandic TV. This is laughable. You think this is

politically motivated, that is your suspicion? There are some who have

political motivations, there is no doubt. The feel of this is that we

can improve the service available to us. We can invest in BBC Scotland

and BBC current affairs, but we don't have to give up our national

UK coverage. We don't have to give it up to have more Scottish

coverage. I wonder: Lesley, if one of the more striking things out of

this report is even the least expensive option, to enhance the

current offering, would require an extra ?3.5 million. What does that

tell you about what is on offer at the moment? At the risk of sounding

like a hostile guest, it tells you that a lot of the machinery sitting

in the Dundee studio has not been updated in my entire career of 30

years. It tells you that we really are not even trying to get radio

Scotland reflected well within Scotland, because so much of the

output is taken from Glasgow studios. If we are really going to

get talking about what it is to produce something for what can's

party describes as a powerhouse parliament, now we have the powers

of taxation and all sorts of new powers, of course it means we need

to have a kind of broadcasting confidence and an infrastructure and

leadership above all in management that reflects all of that. I would

hope that, yes, a lot of the existing staff would have an input

into this. For example, BBC Alba have been producing award-winning

programmes for about a decade that tackle the whole of Europe from a

particular perspective of just 60,000 Gaelic speakers. How much

more exciting would it be if Scots as a whole were having a focus? We

will have to leave it there. Thank you very much.

The promoter of T in the Park, Geoff Ellis, says he has no

regrets about getting ?150,000 from the Scottish Government,

He says many in business and tourism have told him he should have been

given more money to help move the music festival to its

Our arts correspondent Pauline McLean spoke to Geoff Ellis

about who's headlining this year's event and how he has resolved

the problems that marred last year's festival.

I am really pleased. It is the most diverse we have had for years. Red

hot chilli Peppers, Calvin Harris, they are both headliners.

Traditionally, T in the Park has been a first festival for a lot of

young people. Is there a deliberate targeting? To do 85,000 tickets, you

have to have the balance of age groups and that is healthy for the

festival as well. People feel a passion about T in the Park that

they want to keep coming. This is your second year at Strahallan.

Paddy Philip went? It was difficult. The lateness of planning permission,

the short window we had to organise the event, problems with the site

move, we did not deliver it as well as we could. The experience of the

audience was not as good as it usually is. We had up -- we held up

our hands and said that. This year it is about improving the customer

experience. We have got a great line-up, but we are making changes

to the site and the organisational structure. The council have 36

recommendations of rings they wanted to see evidence of them having

changed before this year's festival. How confident are you that all of

these recommendations can be met? We are confident we can deliver what

the council is looking for and more importantly, what our audiences

looking for. We are making some radical changes to the

organisational structure. We are confident we will deliver an event

that the council is proud of. They know what we are capable of

delivering. Last year we fell short, but this year we are confident we

will have an event that everyone will enjoy. The proof of the pudding

will be in the eating, as they say. You mention planning permission, but

your public entertainment licence has yet to come. How difficult does

it make that in selling tickets. Last it looked as if it impacted on

your audience. The time frame is much tighter, but for all outdoor

shows, or that -- all the shows I am doing, it is just the way the

licensing goes. The issue that came up last year was the money you got

from the government. Many thought that as a commercial company, you

should not have had. It seemed like a small amount of money in terms of

the fuss it cause. Do you regret it? Not at all. If we were building

cars, no one would have mentioned it. Some people say we should not

have got it, but many said we should, particularly people in

tourism and enterprise. They said we should get more because it cost

millions to move the event. We do not regret making the application.

It was costing us a lot of money to relocate the festival and the

support was justified. Everybody accepts that, but we became a bit of

a political football which is unfortunate. This is year two of

three that you envisage being there. Can you give us any sense of where

you see the festival long term? Are you already looking for somewhere

else? No. I think Strahallan is a beautiful sight. The trees and the

woodland around it, the new transport plan. We are convinced it

will run smoothly and it will be our long-term home. Last year was a

difficult year, we accept that, but it is onwards and upwards. And

Strathallan Castle will be our long-term home.

On Radio Scotland this morning David Allison spoke to a couple

from Giffnock, now in their 90s, who escaped from Nazi Germany

as teenagers on the famed Kindertransport.

They were welcomed into this country and later married and settled here.

David wanted to find out what they made of the latest wave

of refugees fleeing new horrors in the Middle East.

Here's his report, this time with pictures of Henry and Ingrid

At the moment, it is the most horrendous thing to watch. On

television, in The Papers. Hundreds of thousands of people fleeing. It

is a heartbreaking affair. It reminds me of having to leave the

country where I was born and brought up until I was 15 and it also

reminds me having to say goodbye to my parents, which was dreadful. Do

you have any sympathy with the dilemma the politicians face? Yes, I

certainly have sympathy. It is horrendous. It is to do with

numbers. When we came, OK, there were 10,000 of us kids. We

integrated into this community. What is on the way now from Syria and

Afghanistan from north Africa are thousands of young people, mostly

young men. How can we integrate them. If your life is at risk, you

do all sorts of things. I think there is a limit how many people

each country can take in, but I think all countries should try and

take in a view. I wouldn't just say no to anybody and I can't say yes to

everybody either. I just feel I am not knowledgeable enough. I do not

know the answer. Definitely not, I would not like to be a politician.

Henry and Ingrid Wuga talking to David Allison.

Joining me now to reflect on that and some of the day's other news

are Scottish Labour activist Stephen Low and Scottish Green

Welcome to both of you. So, I am just thinking on the way that we

heard 320,000, 323,000 more people came into the UK than those who

left, what are your thoughts on Henry and Ingrid's reflections? Some

of it is unhelpful because we are talking about economic migration.

People are coming here and filling skill positions, but we have a

crisis, a refugee crisis. We have seen the Jungle in Calais and what

is happening there and we are not seeing a coherent approach. We have

not taken enough action. There are people suffering. There are people

waiting at the Borders in Europe. We are one of the wealthiest countries.

There are about a million people waiting to get into Europe. That is

a fifth of 1% of the population and we need to not falling foul and

allowing David Cameron to set his agenda. We should be working towards

a more progressive Europe based on building a common good. Does it not

say something when actual refugees from the Nazi era are worried about

the numbers coming in and worried about whether there will be able to

integrate? I found that interesting because not that many people were

coming in. What that really meant is not that many people were allowed

in. Talk about people not integrating then is what is being

said now. This is a refugee crisis and by and large, people are running

away from countries that in the last few years have been quite

extensively bombed and occupied by countries, some of them EU

countries. This debate, or rather this crisis is not telling us

anything about the EU and how it works. In most respects it is a

complete diversion from actual issues about the EU functions. The

whole of Greece is talking about it. They have recalled their ambassadors

to Austria. The EU migration Commissioner said the system could

break down within weeks. That has got to be a worry. It is a worry and

that is why we need to push for a reform based on something more

socially just, that has humanitarian principles at the heart of it

because the reality is that these are people, children and families

suffering because not enough action is being taken.

It is a diabolical situation to be in and it should not just be a case

of saying, I'm all right Jack, so we will just do our thing. There are

other countries that are doing their fair share, like Germany, and we

need to look to countries who are taking this issue seamlessly. I have

two leave Europe there and get on to the Savile report. Dame Janet Smith

found that the BBC repeatedly failed to stop sexual abuse by Jimmy Savile

and Stuart Hall. The BBC allowed Jimmy Savile and Stuart Hall to go

undetected for decades. They apologised to the victims today and

said lessons have been learnt. Do you think they have? What was

interesting if they talked of a culture of fear, a culture of fear

that is reinforced by a massive disparity of power and the

competition for jobs. Frankly, that is not just an issue for the BBC. It

is simply not related to child sex abuse. That is something you can see

right the way through the care sector which has also had a

situation where whistle-blowing is effectively impossible because you

are either fearing for your job or yourself. All this continue to be an

issue in broadcasting? Where is an issue about how the talent are

treated, but what is more serious is that there are people with talent

and ego, but there is a management structure where concerns about them

cannot be raised because the management does not want to hear it.

The review identified over 70 victims of Jimmy Savile and over 20

Stuart Hall. How could it go unnoticed? It three did not go

unnoticed, but people thought they could not speak up because of the

culture we have been talking about and the teams have not been able to

speak up. The flood of came forward mainly after Jimmy Savile's death.

It is a wider problem about powerful figures seeming untouchable. Stevens

said it's not just the BBC, it's about public institutions. -- as

Stephen said. We need to look at what changes are going to be put in

place in the future to make sure the pain and suffering that these people

have gone through was not in vain and they have an assurance that

nothing like this will ever happen again. That is going to involve the

BBC having a sharp look in the mirror and up turning some

uncomfortable stones. That's it for tonight

and for this week. I'm back on Monday, usual time,

with a special debate on education.