The BBC are in the spotlight today – following calls for BBC executives expenses to be revealed after fears they could be wasting public funds.

The announcement comes after the recent release of the Digital Britain Report this month – which states part of BBC licence fee is to be used to fund universal broadband access.

Recent high profile revelations and uproar about MPs expenses is also most likely to have contributed to the call for expenses to be published – with public funded companies like the BBC now expected to be much more open and accountable for spend of the publics licence fee money.

This morning the BBC released five year’s worth of expenses claims of 10 of their executive board members – including champagne for Bruce Forsyth, a ‘replacement’ handbag, two iPods, extreme petrol claims and more.

You can view the expenses online for past and present BBC executive directors from 2004/2005 – 2008/2009 financial year, as well as individual expenses for the current 10 BBC executives, including Mark Thompson’s expenses, Director General of the BBC.

The information was released following a new policy by the BBC to publish salary and expenses details from now on, including details of its top 50 executives and decision-makers – even Director General of the BBC Mark Thompson claimed £2,236.90 on October 30, 2008 to fly family back in the midst of the Sachgate affair – with justification from the BBC stating: "The Director General ended his family holiday early in order to deal with the issue relating to the Russell Brand show. The Chairman of the Audit Committee of the Executive Board agreed that the expense of cutting a family holiday short would be met by the BBC in advance of the claim being made. The Chairman of the BBC Trust was also informed."

Thompson himself claimed £9,000 in expenses last year saying: "top talent costs perhaps 2% of the licence fee", approximately £72m. Thompson also claimed government policymakers were "ideologically focused" on negative funding systems of the BBC, which jeopardised "the independence and ability of the BBC to deliver its services".

Despite the release of such private documents, it has been said that some sensitive information has been removed citing an exemption in the ‘Freedom of Information Act’ allowing to conceal information related to its "journalism, art or literature".

So how much of our money is being spent? It seems last year saw the BBC's top 10 executives claimed a total of £145,000 on expenses – and this is not the first time executive and channel controller claims have gone public.

Mark Thompson was speaking at the Chartered Institute of Public Finances and Accountancy's annual conference in Manchester at time of the breaking news, saying that the trust and the BBC's executive board had "strongly encouraged us to look at whether we could and should go further in our practice of routine disclosure".

The Department for Culture said it was "disappointed" with his comments.

So how will this affect the BBC and its future spending structure? Things are certainly changing – from the recession to a reform in government expenses guidelines (and indeed now a new, more modern speaker of The House of Commons as a result), and frivolous unjustifiable spending is no longer tolerable. Will this lead to the public dictating how the BBC spends its money – perhaps one day we could have even have a vote on this like political elections?

In short – the public pay for the BBC so surely we have the right to see how our money is spent….