The BBC “put its reputation at risk” by handing over huge pay-offs to senior staff, according to a committee of senior MPs.
Margaret Hodge, who chairs the public accounts committee (PAC), said some of the justifications for the pay-offs had been “extraordinary”.
Among the excessive payouts given to senior staff were £470,000 to former director-general George Entwistle after only 54 days in the job and £680,000 to former chief operating officer Caroline Thomson.
Deputy director-general Mark Byford departed with a total payout of £949,000.
Ms Hodge said: “The BBC is the world’s leading public sector broadcaster, but recent revelations over severance payments to departing senior managers have put its reputation at risk.
“150 senior managers between them received payments totalling £25 million. We were dismayed to find that many of these individuals received ‘sweeteners’ in their severance packages that were far larger than the sums to which they were contractually entitled.”
She said there was “a failure at the highest levels of the BBC to challenge payments to senior managers and what appears to have been a culture of cronyism that allowed for the liberal use of licence fee payers’ money”.
A BBC Trust spokesman said the PAC’s work had “helped inform” the corporation’s plan to simplify the way it was run which were announced last week.