The BBC should sell off costly buildings such as its Scottish headquarters and reinvest the cash in programmes, former Ofcom chairman Lord Grade has said.

The Tory peer said these large regional bases were ‘palaces’ – and an example of the money ‘slopping about’ inside the corporation.

He said an increase in staff working from home would enable the BBC to spend more on making high-quality shows and cut the TV licence fee, which costs £180 a year.

BBC Pacific Quay, the corporation’s HQ in Glasgow, cost nearly £200million to build but it emerged in 2024 that staff were being told to come into the office only two days a week if they could do their jobs from home.

Speaking on The Media Show on BBC Radio 4, Lord Grade said he had not yet heard of a credible ‘alternative’ to the licence fee, which he said was too expensive.

He said: ‘You go round the BBC through the nations and regions, and you see these palaces that they occupy around the place. There’s an awful lot of money slopping about inside the BBC.’

He added: ‘You’ve got to decide what you think is the right price [for the TV licence] and then decide what you are going to drop.’

Lord Grade, a controller of BBC1 in the 1980s, called for the corporation to ‘cut overheads and buildings’, with staff working from home or in ‘small, rented offices’. This would ‘free up as much money as possible for programmes’.

Despite the Covid-19 legal restrictions ending in 2022, the BBC admitted it still let a significant number of staff work from home – a situation condemned by critics who said businesses around the BBC offices were being badly hit by lost trade.

The flagship Pacific Quay HQ opened in 2007 at a cost of £188million. Insiders joke that its social spaces and studios are now so deserted the only drama fit to be screened from there would be one about the Marie Celeste.

The building, a replacement for the sandstone Broadcasting House in Queen Margaret Drive in the city’s West End, was opened after a financial scandal which saw costs soar from £126million.

In 2022, the National Audit Office said the BBC was spending £273million a year on its 154 buildings, with 12.7 per cent of its estate vacant.

In April, the BBC said it will cut 1,800-2,000 jobs, almost one in ten, to tackle ‘significant financial pressures’.

John Cook, emeritus professor of media at Glasgow Caledonian University, said Pacific Quay ‘does feel rather deserted’ sometimes.

But he added: ‘One doesn’t want to mothball large buildings in order to save money, only to regret it later if circumstances change.’

A BBC spokesman said: 'Through our Across the UK strategy we are committed to supporting the growth of UK creative clusters, as we continue to move people, programming and decision making closer to the audiences we serve.

“Pacific Quay is major Scottish production centre – not just an office – with colleagues delivering roles which can only be performed on site.'