Jonathan Ross is to keep his job at the BBC after the corporation’s governing body ruled that senior Radio 2 executives were to blame for the broadcast of obscene telephone calls to the actor Andrew Sachs.

In its final report on the messages left by Ross and Russell Brand, the BBC Trust said that Dave Barber, former head of compliance at Radio 2, and Lesley Douglas, the station’s former Controller, made severe errors of judgment in allowing the material to be aired. Both have since resigned.

Despite also issuing a separate ruling against Ross for his use of language in an episode of his Friday night show, aired in May, Sir Michael Lyons, the trust’s Chairman, said that the £6 million-a-year presenter could return to work after his 12-week unpaid suspension ends in January.

“We are very clear that the Director-General has taken the right action with respect to Jonathan Ross,” Sir Michael said. He said he believed that the BBC had a “cultural issue” of failing to follow editorial guidelines.

Times Archive, 1925: Broadcast over Britain by J. C. W. Reith

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• Sachsgate: the BBC Trust report in full

In a report, the BBC admitted that before broadcast, no Radio 2 executive had listened in full to the episode of Russell Brand’s show containing the sexually explicit messages, which led to more than 40,000 complaints.

It also emerged that Nic Philps, 25, the show’s producer, had failed to submit a compliance form listing the offensive material in the programme before it was broadcast, in breach of BBC editorial procedures.

The trust said that the messages, in which Ross shouted into Sachs’s answering machine that Brand had “f***ed” his 23-year-old granddaughter, Georgina Baillie, constituted an “unacceptable and deplorable intrusion” into the private lives of the pair.

BBC management has since promised to set up a register of high-risk radio presenters, who will be tightly controlled. It has also pledged harsher punishments for breaching guidelines.

In a line-by-line account of the lax procedures that led to the broadcast, Mark Byford, BBC deputy director-general, described how a muddled conversation between Philps and Sachs led the producer to believe he had the actor’s permission to broadcast the material. Philps, whom the trust said should have stopped the show as soon as Ross revealed Brand’s relationship with Ms Baillie to Sachs, then e-mailed Barber, saying the material was “very funny” but he felt it should be removed from the final broadcast.

He added that Ross and Brand wanted it to be included and that Sachs had given permission. Barber listened to the extract twice, before e-mailing Douglas, saying he thought it should be included, with a warning that the show contained strong language. He concluded: “Are you happy with this as a plan of action?” Douglas, who was out of the office, replied with one word: “Yes.” She later said she trusted Barber’s judgment and thought that he would have listened to the programme in full. Barber was “adamant that it was not his responsibility”.

A BBC spokesman said that the corporation accepted the verdict of the trust in full, but Ross would face no further penalty. “Lessons have been learnt,” he said. Ofcom, the industry watchdog, is still investigating. It could levy a fine of up to £250,000.

Sachs’s wife and Ms Baillie said they considered the matter closed.

— The BBC Trust yesterday rejected a £68 million plan to stream local news footage on to a network of 65 regional BBC websites. Sir Michael said that the plan would deal a crushing blow to commercial rivals. “Although licence-fee payers want better local services from the BBC, this is unlikely to achieve what they want,” he said.

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