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This article was published in the Midlands News, the internal newsletter, in June 1992. Roger Waugh, the Head of Resources sets out to explain the principles behind, Director General, John Birt’s ‘Producer Choice’.
‘Producer Choice’ split off the Resource departments from Production, and resulted in mass redundancies in Resources. Redundancies are hinted at in this article, but the position wasn’t clear in 1992.
Thanks for Stuart Gandy for sharing this edition of Midlands News.
The following comments were left on the Pebble Mill Facebook page:
Carolyn Davies: ‘Still commonly used in inverted commas to mean ‘complete disaster’…’
Malcolm Hickman: ‘I remember I had to establish each business units’ asset size so they could be charged. A mammoth task.’
Mark Holdstock: ‘I couldn’t decide who was the worse DG. Birt or Mark Thompson producer choice was a completely stupid idea. When they started charging for record loans, we quickly worked out that it was much cheaper to pop into town to HMV and buy the disc.’
Steve Peacock: ‘Idiotic and divisive policy. Decimated the craft base and did us producers no favours at all.’
Caroline Feldon Parsons: ‘Producer Choice. Leading to much less actual sensible choice than a producer had before it was implemented. Lovely.’
Julia Versluis: ‘Until you had to pay for a service and discover it was three times more expensive this way.’
Julie Hill: ‘I jumped ship before that hideous “initiative” was enforced. Lost out on any redundancy though!’
Vicky King: ‘I remember it well, working in HR, one of the biggest change programmes I’ve worked on.’