The programme included interviews with the Chancellor, the Shadow Chancellor, the leader of the Liberal Democrats and the Deputy Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies. There was also analysis by a range of BBC Correspondents, both in live interviews and pre-recorded reports, drawing on a variety of sources including the independent analyst of the UK’s public finances, the Office for Budget Responsibility. The ECU therefore took the view that there was a sufficient range of views on the statement within the programme for the requirement of due impartiality to be met.  A review also found that on each occasion there was a direct or indirect reference to the Resolution Foundation, an alternative view was included either at the time or shortly afterwards.

Guidance issued by BBC News suggests the Resolution Foundation should be referred to as a “Think-tank focusing on people on lower incomes” but in the ECU’s view omitting that description was unlikely to leave viewers with a materially misleading impression of its area of interest when judged in light of the subject matter. Viewers would have been aware from the contextual references to poverty and  “the very poorest” that the Resolution Foundation was concerned about the potential economic impact on the less well-off.

The ECU also noted that whilst the Chief Executive of the Resolution Foundation is a previous Director of Policy for the Labour Party, the President of the Foundation’s Advisory Council is the Conservative peer, Lord Willetts. It therefore did not accept the evidence supported the assertion of political bias.
Not Upheld