Westminster debate: The BBC’s Relationship with the Met Office (Divorce)

From the parliament.uk website,  background on the Westminster hall debate to be held next Tuesday on the BBC-MetO relationship. What I’d like to know, is how does the MetO get a debate with a petition of less than 300 signatures, when other urgent causes with tens of thousands of names on e-petitions are ignored?

Image credit: Cartoons by Josh

Published Friday, October 23, 2015

A Westminster Hall debate on the BBC’s relationship with the Met Office has been scheduled for Tuesday 27 October 2015 at 1430hrs. The Member in charge of the debate is Mr Ben Bradshaw.

The following information has been compiled in preparation for the debate on the BBC’s relationship with the Met Office. It provides a brief history of the relationship between the BBC and the Met Office and a summary of the recent announcement that the Met Office had lost the contract to provide the BBC with data for its weather forecasts. Also included are links to relevant media articles and a selection of recent Parliamentary Questions on this topic as an attached document.

Frosty forecast for BBC-MET Office relations

Met Office loses BBC weather forecasting contract.
[Josh has waved magic –Tim (replacement image Original image)]

The UK’s weather service has provided the data used for BBC forecasts since the corporation’s first radio weather bulletin on 14 November 1922.

The BBC said it was legally required to secure the best value for money for licence fee payers and would tender the contract to outside competition.

The Met Office said it was disappointed by the decision. A replacement is expected to take over next year.

Is the message getting through? MET Office seeks Space Weather Scientist

There aren’t many jobs on offer at the MET Office these days, maybe belt tightening is the order of the day as they ready for privatisation. But it seems that having shot their mouths off about the Sudden Stratospheric Warming that we already knew was linked to the current cold snap, they’ve realised they need someone who knows something about the subject before they get made to look silly. Again. Finding a bright young astrophysics/Earth sciences graduate with Fortran skills might be a bit of a challenge though:

Space Weather Research Scientist
Salary: Starting £25,500 and for exceptional candidates up to £29,100 + competitive benefits, including Civil Service Pension

Generic role: Scientist

Profession: Science and Engineering

12 month fixed-term, Full time at Met Office, Exeter

Closing date for applications: 8 February 2013

Background information

Space Weather is a developing area of work at the Met Office. The all Hazards guidance now provided by Met Office forecasters includes alerts of space weather events. We have also signed a Memorandum of Agreement with the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center which covers exchange of data, development of space weather services, forecaster training and collaboration on space weather research. One initial focus of Met Office space weather research is the development of a thermosphere / ionosphere data assimilation system.