Farewell from Alec

Last week, I left the BBC after nine happy years. My last role there was Head of BBC Outreach, having created the department around six years ago. In that time, we went from strength to strength – with an increasing remit that involved community activities across the UK, formal corporate responsibility reporting and a national volunteering scheme for BBC staff.

Since its creation, BBC Outreach has sought to lead the way in getting closer to what are often described as 'harder to reach' audiences and encourage other departments to use outreach activity to do the same. Outreach projects provide different, often unusual, ways of communicating with people across a whole raft of communities. They go beyond broadcasting, bringing the BBC and its staff face-to-face with diverse individuals - many of whom have had precious little previous contact with the BBC and its output.

Outreach might be BBC journalists going into schools to help teenage students get to know more about how the news is put together. It might be bringing together young and old people in a community to create a film about their shared experience - I have yet to see someone who doesn't get a real buzz from holding and using a camera. Or maybe, as is happening in west London’s White City right now, outreach can bring hundreds of people in a local community together through the mechanism of the BBC to make a musical film about their lives, their experiences and their hopes for the future.

Often this type of face to face contact with the BBC gives audiences a different take on what the BBC is all about. It certainly brings them closer to a broadcaster they have often seen as remote. It also makes people more aware of the BBC's public service role and its keen desire to represent the many diverse communities up and down the country.

So over and above the altruistic motives for outreach work there is a real benefit to the BBC. Neither is this just because the audience gets a better understanding of the broadcaster - the BBC also gets a much better understanding of its audiences. Through outreach work BBC staff are constantly learning new things. Time and again they come back to the office with fresh ideas for programming so that outreach often directly leads to new broadcast and online output.

For a broadcaster, particularly a public service broadcaster, wide ranging communication with the whole of the audience is fundamental. Outreach is just one route but I have no doubt it’s an important and effective one. It’s with some sadness that I leave the department behind but I’m certain they’ll continue to grow and bring an amazing service to audiences all across the UK.