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| BBC director general Tim Davie vows to 'get a grip' | BBC director general Tim Davie vows to 'get a grip' |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| The acting director general of the BBC has vowed to "get a grip" at the corporation following the resignation of George Entwistle over a Newsnight broadcast on child abuse allegations. | The acting director general of the BBC has vowed to "get a grip" at the corporation following the resignation of George Entwistle over a Newsnight broadcast on child abuse allegations. |
| Tim Davie said he had set up a "clear line of command" in news. | Tim Davie said he had set up a "clear line of command" in news. |
| The director and deputy director of news have been asked to "step aside" pending an internal review into the way claims about Jimmy Savile were handled. | |
| Mr Davie said Mr Entwistle's pay-off was a matter for the BBC Trust. | Mr Davie said Mr Entwistle's pay-off was a matter for the BBC Trust. |
| 'Justified and necessary' | |
| He was appointed to the role on Saturday after Mr Entwistle announced he was resigning. Mr Entwistle left after eight weeks in the post with a year's salary of £450,000. | |
| Amid criticism from Downing Street of the pay-off Lord Patten, chairman of the BBC Trust - the corporation's governing body - has written to Commons culture media and sport committee, describing the decision as "justified and necessary". | |
| His letter says the sum was what the BBC would have had to pay if they had fired Mr Entwistle and that the trust was considering sacking him if he had not volunteered his resignation. | |
| Labour has asked for an urgent question in the House of Commons on the pay-out. | |
| In his first televised interview since taking the role, Mr Davie said: "If the public are going to get journalism they trust from the BBC I have to be, as director general, very clear on who is running the news operation and ensuring that journalism we put out passes muster. | |
| "The first decision I have made is to get a grip of that, take action and build trust by putting a clear line of command in. | |
| "Separately, we are going to look at the individual process, and there may be disciplinary action. But I want to be fair to people. I don't subscribe to the view that you should act very quickly in that regard and be unreasonable." | |
| Mr Entwistle resigned following a Newsnight report which led to former Tory treasurer, Lord McAlpine, being wrongly accused of child abuse in north Wales in the 1980s. | |
| The BBC said neither director of news Helen Boaden nor her deputy Steve Mitchell "had anything at all to do with the failed Newnight investigation into Lord McAlpine". | |
| However, they were in the chain of command at the time that Newsnight shelved an earlier investigation into abuse claims against former BBC presenter Jimmy Savile. | |
| They had removed themselves from making decisions on some areas of BBC News output while a separate inquiry, by former head of Sky News Nick Pollard, was held into that decision. | |
| Ken MacQuarrie, director of BBC Scotland, who was asked to investigate how Newsnight was allowed to broadcast its report on abuse in north Wales, said: "To address the lack of clarity around the editorial chain of command, a decision has been taken to re-establish a single management to deal with all output, Savile-related or otherwise." | |
| The BBC said once the Pollard Review reports, Ms Boaden and Mr Mitchell "expect to then return to their positions". |