BBC 'had culture of over-paying' - Lord Patten

Paying senior executives redundancy settlements in excess of their contractual requirements is part of the BBC's culture, the Trust chairman has said.

Lord Patten told the Public Accounts Committee that the BBC Trust needed to tackle and apologise for wasting money, but that the system of governance could work.

When asked by committee chairman Margaret Hodge if he felt bosses had been dancing on a head of a pin to avoid responsibility, Lord Pattern quipped that there were an "awful lot of pinheads".