Ben Bradshaw, the new Culture Secretary, has accused BBC chiefs of showing such “wrong-headed” leadership that they have lost the confidence of many of their senior staff.

On the eve of the publication of the corporation’s annual report, Mr Bradshaw attacked the attitudes of the BBC’s Director-General, Mark Thompson, and its Chairman, Sir Michael Lyons, towards government plans to share licence fee revenue with other broadcasters.

Mr Bradshaw, a former BBC journalist, said that their out-of-hand rejection of what they termed “top-slicing” of the £3.6 billion licence fee had left many senior staff demoralised.

He told the Financial Times: “[There] are plenty of people within the BBC that do not feel it is a well-led organisation and that is almost for me the most worrying thing. And they don’t feel they are being well led on this issue. It fits into a pattern. It is not the only issue. There is almost a feeling of despair among a lot of highly respected BBC professionals.”

In June the Government’s Digital Britain report announced plans to ringfence 3.5 per cent of licence fee revenue to fund regional news broadcasts on ITV. It also suggested that some of the money could go towards children’s programming. The BBC sees such a move as a threat that could lead to the collapse of the licence fee. Mr Thompson claimed that some in the Government had ideological reasons to knock the corporation. Sir Michael said that he would not “sit quietly by and watch this happen”.

Mr Bradshaw said: “I don’t know why they have adopted this position. I don’t think it is sensible. I think it is wrong-headed and will ultimately be self-defeating.”

His comments were seen last night as being designed to undermine the corporation on the day that it tried to showcase its achievements. Mr Thompson had been hoping to draw a line under an annus horribilis during which the corporation has been embroiled in a string of editorial scandals and expenses controversies when he publishes the document this morning.

The Director-General, who was paid £816,000 last year, said in January that senior executives would have pay frozen and their bonuses, which have amounted to 10 per cent of salary, scrapped this year, to save £20 million.

It is understood that the report will show a rise in executives’ salaries as the result of a 2 per cent increase in August last year. Total remuneration will fall, however, because the salary rises will be outweighed by loss of bonuses. Earlier this year the BBC released figures showing that its senior executives had spent £363,000 in expenses over the past five years.

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