BBC boss Mark Thompson takes £163,000 cut

The Director-General of the BBC, Mark Thompson, has volunteered to give up a 'pension top-up' worth £163,000 a year in a bid to quell union unrest over plans to cut staff pensions at the Corporation. It will mean a cut of 20 per cent to his annual remuneration package of £838,000.

Because he has already agreed - along with other senior executives - to forego a month's salary this year, Thompson will soon find his pay packet down pretty close to the level he earned when he started in 2004 - a mere £560,000.

Thompson is one of about 30 senior BBC staff who have benefited from the pension top-up payments called 'Furbs' - Funded Unapproved Retirement Benefit Schemes - which were introduced to compensate high-paid executives affected by a £123,000 cap on pensionable earnings. In  effect, the scheme has topped up their pensions by the amount they would have got if the cap had not been introduced.

Thompson's promise to review Furbs came when he addressed staff yesterday over the cutbacks needed to plug a £2m hole in the corporation's final salary pension scheme.

Not surprisingly, there have been complaints that if the rest of the staff must suffer, then the senior executives lucky enough to receive Furbs should take a cut too.

Thompson told staff: "One of the frequent points in consultation is surely if we are reviewing pension arrangements, we should review these [Furbs] as well. Well, we think that is right. We will review them on the principle that pension contributions should be as consistent and fair as they can be.

"My expectation is these payments will be changed and all those who get them will be moved on to the same pension arrangements we are now proposing."

Other senior staff affected alongside Thompson include Jana Bennett, head of television channels, who receives £87,000 in pension top-ups as part of her £517,000 remuneration. Unions welcomed Thompson's announcement but warned that it was "too little, too late". ·