BBC reaches pension agreement with unions

Journalists picket outside of the BBC Television Centre in west London November 5, 2010.

LONDON (Reuters) - Management at state-funded broadcaster BBC has reached agreement in principle with trade unions in a dispute against planned changes to its pension scheme, the BBC said on Tuesday.

Members of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) staged a 48-hour strike earlier this month, resulting in the repeat of many programmes in place of flagship news programmes.

A further 48-hour strike was planned for November 15-16, but was called off to allow talks to take place.

"As staff will know, we met with the joint unions at ACAS today in order to resolve the final point of clarification around our pension proposals," Lucy Adams, BBC director of business operations, said in an email to staff.

"We are pleased to say that discussions on behalf of the joint unions and the BBC reached a conclusion and an agreement in principle was signed by the joint unions on this final outstanding point."

The final point of clarification involved the BBC making the commitment that the annual pension revaluation for a new defined benefit scheme will increase in line with inflation or four percent, whichever is lower, subject to economic and financial conditions.

The broadcaster, which wants to tackle a 1.5 billion pound pensions deficit, is funded by a levy imposed on all households and its funding has been constrained by a government squeeze on public spending designed to rein in a record budget deficit.

Nobody from the NUJ was immediately available for comment.

(Writing by Avril Ormsby; Editing by Maria Golovnina)