BBC Trust

On the 4 March 2015 the BBC Trust’s Complaints and Appeals Board (CAB) met to consider an expedited appeal brought by the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of Northern Ireland against the decision of the BBC Executive to exclude the DUP from the proposed BBC’s UK leaders’ debate.

The Trust Panel has decided not to uphold the DUP’s appeal.

The Panel noted that in considering the DUP’s appeal the Trust was exercising a supervisory role and should not substitute its own judgement for that of the Executive, or the Director-General as Editor-in-Chief, as it would be wrong for the Trust to take over from the Director-General the primary duty of deciding editorial content.

The Panel decided that:

(1) it had seen no evidence that the BBC Executive's decision to exclude the DUP from the Debate was an error in principle;
(2) it had seen no evidence of any relevant factors which the BBC Executive had failed to take into consideration, or irrelevant considerations which the BBC Executive had taken into account, when reaching its decision to exclude the DUP from the Debate;
(3) it did not consider that the BBC Executive's decision to exclude the DUP from the Debate was wholly wrong because the BBC Executive had not balanced the various factors fairly in the scale.

The full finding can be found below.