BBC's Creative Diversity Commitment

We are committed to being the home of diverse creative talent.

A Joint statement made by Director-General Tony Hall, Director of Creative Diversity June Sarpong and Director of Content Charlotte Moore on 22 June 2020.

It's now nearly a month since the senseless killing of George Floyd, and we have seen a powerful anti-racist movement gather momentum worldwide. All of us have spoken a lot together about the role of the BBC at this time: how we can help lead the way; what we can do to be an instrument of change.

We need to step up. The BBC is impartial, but are also unequivocal: there is no impartiality when it comes to racism. We stand in support of the black community. This is a moment to question ourselves harder than ever about whether we're doing enough to help tackle racism and drive progress within both our industry and society as a whole.

The BBC has a long history of celebrating creative diversity. For almost 100 years it has not simply been our responsibility to represent and reflect the whole of the country we serve, it has been fundamental to our values. That's always been our ambition – but sometimes we've fallen short. We have an opportunity now to make those values count more than ever. We are committed to being the home of diverse creative talent, but we need to go further.

Our Creative Diversity Unit has been working right across the organisation in recent months, supporting our divisions to accelerate our progress on inclusion and raise the level of our ambition. In the last few weeks we have been listening hard, taking time and care to work out what more we can do to help make this a real turning point and how best we can be part of the solution. It cannot be about warm words or good intentions. It has to be about action.

We are throwing open the doors of the BBC more widely than ever to diverse stories and diverse storytellers.

We know that it's the content we make which, perhaps more than anything else, will demonstrate the scale of our commitment to achieving our goals. And we know this is where we can not only drive meaningful change that's felt by audiences but also create a strong framework to help diverse storytellers succeed at all levels of the industry.

That's why we are today announcing the BBC's Creative Diversity Fund. It's a pledge to spend £100 million of our commissioning budget over the next three years on diverse content. From next year, it will also be supported by a new, mandatory 20% diverse-talent target in all new commissions.

Our aim is that this new fund, alongside our forthcoming Diversity Code of Practice, will achieve three things. It will provide our audiences with even more creative and diverse content. It will support more diverse storytellers, with more support for stories that recognise and explore the nuances across the full breadth of BAME experience. And it will be the starting point for a whole series of important commitments over the months ahead that will ensure the BBC can lead the way for creative diversity within, and behalf of, the whole industry.

With this fund we are throwing open the doors of the BBC more widely than ever to diverse stories and diverse storytellers. It is the first step of an ambitious journey we are on to transform the BBC inside and out, better represent the public we serve, and make a real difference in society at a critical time.