A senior BBC executive has been sacked over "misuse of hospitality" used for entertaining clients of one of the corporation's commercial operations.
The BBC confirmed that Ann Wilson, the head of the BBC's technology arm, which employs more than 1,400 people and is currently up for sale, had been fired yesterday after an internal investigation.
The corporation's acting director general, Mark Byford, notified the division's staff in a terse email, describing it as "very difficult news" and fuelling feverish speculation about the reasons for her departure.
"We can confirm that Ann Wilson, managing director of BBC Technology, has been dismissed following disciplinary proceedings," said a BBC spokesman, adding that the action had been taken for "misuse of hospitality".
Ms Wilson, who joined BBC Technology in May 2002, previously had a long career in the commercial sector, most recently as chief operating officer at management consultants Arthur D Little.
The BBC today insisted that the dismissal of Ms Wilson would have no effect on the sale process, which is expected to save the BBC up to £30m a year and is being handled by the BBC's chief technology officer, John Varney.
The BBC Technology operations director, Adrian Corcoran, will take over as acting managing director and the corporation said it was "considering carefully" whether to name a permanent replacement.
The move has unsettled staff, some of whom already fear for their futures as the sale process continues.
The BBC confirmed last month that it had narrowed down the number of bidders for the arm, which was spun off from the corporation as part of former director general Greg Dyke's plan to raise more money from commercial operations.
IT giants including CSC, Fujitsu, EDS, Capita, Accenture, IBM, Logica and HP are the remaining bidders fighting it out to buy the company and attendant BBC contract, which is worth up to £2bn.
BBC Technology, which provides the backbone for the corporation's websites and IT support as well as services for third parties including 3 and ESPN, was put up for sale in November.
The division was formed in 2001 to provide technical support to the corporation and compete with big commercial players such as IBM and EDS.
Greg Dyke hoped the unit would supplement the corporation's licence fee income. But contract wins with mobile phone operator Hutchison 3G, sports channel ESPN and US satellite broadcaster DirecTV were not enough to make the venture commercially viable.
On his arrival at the BBC in 1999, Mr Dyke famously clamped down on employee expense accounts, ordering them to slash the corporation's taxi bills and banning croissants and biscuits from meetings in an effort to save money.
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