The BBC pays £32.5 million a year to employees who get two weeks’ notice of shift patterns.

The extra allowance, which is given to around 8,323 of the broadcaster's staff, is paid as a bonus of 10% of their salary if they are given 14 days notice of their hours of work.

Others that sign up to receive a week’s warning of their shift get a 20% bonus.

As part of its delivering quality first process, the BBC agreed a licence fee freeze until April 2017, which means it faces the challenge of balancing income and expenditure. It aims to find savings of 20% by this date.

A BBC spokesperson said: “We are looking at these allowances as part of the overall delivering quality first process but no decisions have been made yet.”

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