THE BBC has been accused of shunning its Scottish staff after it emerged key production jobs at this year's Edinburgh festival will be based in London.
The corporation has advertised several posts at its "home of the BBC" at the Fringe this summer, a venue which will provide live and recorded shows as well as "interactive experiences" and "masterclasses" for the public.
But successful applicants will be based in London for the majority of the three-month contracts, and only travel north during the month of August when the Fringe is running.
The decision has been branded "ludicrous" by Stewart Maxwell MSP, convenor of Holyrood's Culture Committee. It has angered staff at BBC Scotland, who say the jobs should not have gone south at a time when posts are being cut in Scotland.
The posts advertised by the BBC include a production co-ordinator, three assistant producers and two production management assistants. The deadline for applications has now passed, although it is not known if the posts have been filled.
Although the jobs were open to applicants from across the BBC, it is unlikely that they would be taken up by Scottish staff who would have to leave their own positions and relocate to London for eight weeks, only to return to produce what is essentially Scottish material.
Mr Maxwell said: "Recruiting extra staff in London to cover the Edinburgh Fringe, while cutting jobs in Scotland, is an absolutely ludicrous decision from the BBC and is exactly the kind of problem that the Education and Culture committee has been warning about.
"BBC Scotland need to be able to cover major events that take place in Scotland and there are serious questions about their ability to do so in the wake of the cuts they have had to endure.
"There can be no justification for a decision to increase jobs in London to cover Scottish events while cutting jobs in Scotland."
He added that because the Edinburgh Fringe is one of the highlights of Scotland's cultural calendar, it "should be an opportunity for BBC Scotland to provide high-quality coverage to viewers and listeners in Scotland, the rest of the UK and around the world.
"To ship staff up from London to cover the Fringe is extraordinarily wasteful given the wealth of talent that exists in Scotland and seriously undermines the BBC management's attempts to justify cutting staff in Scotland."
The BBC's presence at the Fringe has grown in recent years, with a permanent base established for the first time in 2011. Last year's event saw a number of programmes broadcast from the festival, including Radio 4 shows such as David Mitchell's The Unbelievable Truth, and the popular comedy contest Just A Minute.
Clive Anderson and Rory Bremner produced special shows from Edinburgh, while the BBC's coverage of the London Olympics was screened at Festival Square.
The decision over recruiting staff to oversee this year's batch of broadcasts has not gone down well at the corporation's headquarters at Pacific Quay in Glasgow, where morale is already low while job cuts continue.
One source said: "The key point is, if you want to make programmes about important cultural happenings in Scotland, go to London. Because that's where jobs in Edinburgh are based.
"Who's fighting for jobs at BBC Scotland? Nobody."
A BBC Scotland spokesman said: "These three-month contracts are specifically to work on BBC At The Edinburgh Festivals, a major live event that includes the transmission of many BBC network and local radio programmes from Edinburgh.
"Successful applicants would work in London for the early part of the contract as that is where the production teams for the network programmes are based.
"These vacancies are open to applicants from across the UK."
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