MPs have urged the government to take back responsibility for funding BBC Monitoring – the division that translates and analyses news and information from around the world – to stave off planned cutbacks. Under the terms of agreement announced in George Osborne’s 2010 spending review, responsibility for funding BBC Monitoring passed from the government to the BBC in 2013. The committee said the transfer of responsibility for funding the service had been taken for “presentational” reasons and should be reversed. “BBC Monitoring is one of its key sources of information. However, if the UK government decided there would benefits in offering additional direct funding to BBC Monitoring, we would be happy to consider this,” a BBC spokeswoman said.

Source: The Guardian October 29, 2016 09:22 UTC