The BBC is reportedly planning to spend up to £21m to persuade staff to relocate to Manchester.
The corporation, which is planning to relocate between 1,500 and 1,700 staff to Manchester, is setting aside up to £12,000 per head to persuade employees to quit London, according to The Sunday Telegraph.
The payments include an automatic relocation grant of £5,000, a payment of around £4,000 to cover the cost of legal fees on a new house, and a further £3,000 to buy household items, the newspaper claims.
Employees may also receive around £900 toward removals and up to £1,500 if their furniture is stored while they look for a new house.
Additionally, all employees are entitled to a one-off payment of up to £350 towards the cost of house-hunting trips to the North-West.
The BBC has also agreed to help the partners or spouses of staff to find jobs in the city and is calling in employment relocation specialists to help with this aspect of the move.
The BBC, which wants to relocate its entire sports and children’s divisions as well as Radio Five Live, said that talks about the costs involved were “pure speculation”.
A spokesman said the BBC still had no idea how many staff were due to move to new facilities. “We have said that we hope to have staff of around 1,500 to 1,700 in Manchester,” he told The Sunday Telegraph.
“Some of these will be new posts and not all of these people will relocate from the south. We are at the very early stages of this relocation and we simply have no idea how many staff will move. The relocation scheme is still subject to the approval of the governors, who are due to discuss it in the autumn.”
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