ITV boss Dame Carolyn McCall has been called to answer questions about the broadcaster’s safeguarding and complaint handling policies. She is expected to be grilled at a session of the Culture, Media and Sport committee on June 14.
Following the troubling press around former high-profile ITV personality Phillip Schofield, McCall sent a letter to Parliament on Wednesday revealing that the broadcaster had commissioned an ‘external review of the facts’.
Dame Caroline Dinenage responded to the letter:
“The Committee regards the media industry’s duty of care towards its staff a matter of the highest importance.
“Whilst the recent coverage focuses on the Schofield case, it also raises fundamental issues about safeguarding and complaint handling both at ITV and more widely across the media.
“These issues should, particularly in the case of public service broadcasters, be open to scrutiny. The public must have confidence in the robustness of public service broadcasters’ safeguarding procedures.
“Whilst these are issues that we want to discuss first with ITV, we will also consider them in our regular scrutiny sessions with other public service broadcasters, including the BBC later this month and Channel 4 later in the year.”
Schofield resigned from ITV on Friday (26th May) and was dropped by his talent agency YMU after admitting that he had an “unwise, but not illegal” affair with a young male runner who worked on This Morning.
Due to the fact that the runner was his junior on the daytime show, Schofield’s behaviour has been widely-condemned as an ‘abuse of power’.
The Mail On Sunday reported that his lover was just 15 when they first met as Schofield – then in his late forties – gave a talk at a theatre school.
An earlier DCMS session on June 6 will see ITV and other commercial public service broadcasters examine the Government’s draft Media Bill. It was reported on Tuesday that it would be used as an opportunity to grill ITV bosses over Schofield, but it has now been said that the session will be sticking to its original focus.
