Readers who have studied the BBC Trust’s latest publication of editorial appeals findings (March 2015 – published on 30/4/15) will no doubt have noticed that the first three items relate to appeals – all ultimately unsuccessful – made by members of the public affected by the application of the BBC’s expedited complaints procedure.
An explanation of that procedure can be found in our previous post “The Catch 22 clause in the BBC’s complaints procedure“. As noted there, one scenario which allows the BBC to limit a member of the public’s access to the BBC complaints system is when the BBC deems that a complainant has a history of making complaints which “are shown on investigation to have no reasonable prospect of success”.
An additional scenario which allows for the application of the expedited complaints procedure is the failure of appeals:
“(e) after rejection of the complaint at an earlier stage (eg Stage 1), are persistently and repeatedly appealed unsuccessfully to the next stage (eg Stage 2).”
As has been noted here before:
“Of course the body which rules whether or not a complaint has a “reasonable prospect of success” and which rejects or accepts an appeal is none other than the self-regulating BBC itself.”
Read the rest of this post at BBC Watch.
