What has Scott Mills done?

[PinkJ]

As above!

Depends what market you are comparing with. The breakfast show presenters on Capital Radio, for example, appear to earn substantially more than the BBC paid Mills despite the fact there are three of them and their audience is less than half that Mills was getting on Radio 2. Amanda Holden reportedly gets about £3M per year from Heart Radio for being a co-presenter on their breakfast show, which also has a significantly smaller audience than Mills was getting.

As another poster points out, most people at the BBC don't earn the kind of huge salaries that a few presenters and journalists get. The BBC employs over 21,000 people. Fewer than 70 of their presenters and journalists earn more than £178k and most, if not all, of these high earners would get paid even more if they went to commercial stations.

We don’t “all have to pay”.
They are not “our state broadcaster”.

It's a bit more than that.

Media is different. It plays a different role.

It's a bit different I think because of their role. They have a cultural significance and influence. It's not just any old public sector job. Technically I think you ar4 correct, but ir is more complex than just the technicalities. There are other dimensions to working at the BBC.

A public office involves acting on behalf of the government or public, such as regulatory or executive functions.
Hosting a morning chat show? I don’t think so.

And in the real world, nobody gives a fig.

The BBC must have known at least two police forces had investigated Scott Mills over this 'relationship'.

Why on earth did they appoint him as the presenter of Britain's biggest radio show?

They also knew about allegations against Huw Edwards when they made him the face of the BBC. It's such odd decision making.

i guess they have changed their boundaries,

I love a bit of outcome and hindsight bias.

Just scanned this threat, strangely not surprised by the comments, speculation, "well it's allegedly because.....", we have a right to know!....(which actually you dont to allow fair process)

I hope the opinions, speculation and bias on social media dont harm any genuine investigation that might occur.

What about the suits though? They are responsible for spending large amounts of public money on behalf of the government, the BBC operates under a Royal Charter and a Framework Agreement with the government, which constitutes its fundamental operational and governance framework. That agreement is with the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and sets out the BBC's funding, public purposes, and regulatory duties.

Because innocent until/unless proven guilty is an important principle.

Then the BBC shouldn't have sacked him but should have gone to the police.

There is no outcome here in which the BBC looks good by trying to cover up yet another scandal

In what way?

Gone to the police about what? He's been investigated by the police and released without charge.

And what have they covered up? Unless there is more to this, he is innocent and so there is nothing to cover up.

We don’t know what the allegations were, or on what basis the BBC made their decision so can’t really say whether the BBC were right to sack him or not. We also don’t know if the BBC did got to the police, why it’s surfaced now or anything else, just lots of speculation.

This! But then they didn't care about Savile or Harris or Stuart Hall in the past. They've never changed.

The courts have decided that, in deciding whether someone is a public officer, the courts must ask three questions:

• What was the position held
• What is the nature of the duties undertaken by the employee or officer in that position
• Does the fulfilment of those duties represent the fulfilment of one of the responsibilities of government such that the public have a significant interest in the discharge of the duty which is additional to or beyond an interest in anyone who might be directly affected by a serious failure in the performance of that duty

If the answer to the third question is no, the individual is not acting as a public officer. In the case that set this test, it was decided that a paramedic is not a public officer. It is impossible to say for sure until someone is prosecuted, but my view is that the courts would probably decide that BBC executives are not public officers.

That's interesting as I work for a government ministry and directly know about a situation where an administrator was charged under this legislation for not declaring a second income they hadn't reported it under conflict of interest, the side hustle was not related to the main line of work in any way, but they were fired and charged by police

The allegations were of serious sexual assault against a teenage boy

But the case was dropped, the CPS decided no case to answer.

Seems awful to think it could be totally false allegations and he's now had his career ruined.

Unless there is more, I'm assuming there must be more to it.

And he wasn’t charged, and we don’t know the circumstances of the allegation (rightly so). Do we limit the careers of everyone accused of a serious offence, or just those in the public eye?

The NMC fitness to practice reviews are published because doing so meets the test in GDPR for being in the public interest. Also, whether a nurse is referred to the NMC depends on the nature of the misconduct. A nurse may, for example, be dismissed for excessive sickness absence without being referred to the NMC. We have no right to know why a nurse has been dismissed if the case does not reach the threshold for an NMC referral.

The reasons for the BBC dismissing Mills may be interesting to the public, but it does not meet the test for being in the public interest. The BBC would be in breach of GDPR and liable to pay Mills substantial compensation if they released the reasons.

The courts have decided that civil servants are public officers, so that is not surprising. Elected officials, judges, police officers, immigration officers and prison officers are also public officers. There was a case in which a CofE bishop was found guilty of misconduct in public office but, since the bishop involved pleaded guilty, the courts didn't actually consider whether a bishop is a public officer. I suspect they would have found a bishop is not a public officer had he pleaded not guilty, but there is no way of knowing for certain.

I think it's interesting that someone who works on reception for say DEFRA is held to a higher standard than someone handling millions and commissioning etc with public money for a public broadcaster