BBC severance pay: 'We lost our way on payments in some cases'

The BBC has been criticised by the National Audit Office for paying out £25m in severance to 150 senior BBC managers, and risking "public trust".

The top 10 payments in the three years to December 2012 accounted for 20% of the total.

The BBC said the savings it had made from senior manager redundancies exceeded the cost of severance pay.

Speaking to Matthew Amroliwala, the BBC's Director of Strategy and Digital James Purnell said that "lessons had been learned", but said "I do think we lost our way on payments in some cases".