BBC Settles with Senior Editor Carrie Gracie Over Gender Pay Gap

The gender pay gap at the BBC and the ongoing conversations to fix it have dragged on for at least a year, starting with the revelation that nearly two-thirds of their employees who made over £150,000 were men. Across the board, men made, on average, 9.3% more than women doing the same job. BBC director general Tony Hall promised he was on top of the issue and in January 2018, when it was clear no resolution was in sight, the head of BBC China Carrie Gracie resigned over the discrepancy.

Today the BBC has finally settled with Gracie. According to Variety, she previously refused an offered £45,000 ($59,120) raise, requesting parity and not extra compensation. Though the details of the settlement are unknown, the BBC has provided Gracie some back pay. “For me, this was always about the principle rather than the money,” she told the publication. “I’m delighted to donate all the backdated pay from the BBC to help women striving for equality at work.” She’s currently taking a six month break from the network to write about gender disparity.

The BBC released the following statement:

The BBC acknowledges the specific circumstances relating to Carrie’s appointment, apologizes for underpaying Carrie, and has now put this right. Carrie is donating the full amount received to a charity of her choice.

Tony Hall added:

“I am pleased that we’ve been able to move past our differences and work through things together; we can now look to the future. I’m also glad that Carrie will be contributing to [Scotland BBC chief] Donalda MacKinnon’s project to make the BBC a great place for women to work. That really matters to me, and I want us to lead the way.”

Now is the time to celebrate a network accomplishing something that should’ve existed in the first place. They did it!