The National Audit Office (NAO) has rounded on the BBC for failing to extract value for money during a recent £2bn capital spending splurge.

The accusations were levelled in a report which saw the public service broadcaster rapped for doing the public a disservice in their management of three prestige projects; Broadcasting House, London; Salford Quays, Manchester and Pacific Quay, Glasgow.

Pacific Quay was built as a statement of commitment to Scotland and was initially costed at £126m and scheduled to complete in June 2006, one year and £62m later it finally opened after the corporation dipped into unused contingency funds.

Despite managing to come in on time and under budget Salford Quays also found itself in the firing line with NAO auditors chastising the beeb for an: “absence of a clear assessment of intended benefit at the outset”, an oversight which was said to have left no yardstick from which to measure achievement.

In future the BBC has been told to ensure that investment decisions are based on assessment of scope and cost, a baseline is established to measure performance and proposals are subject to effective challenge by the BBC Trust.