High life of the BBC fatcats: The ex-Deputy DG enjoying his £3.4million pension aged just 55 and the designer-clad payoff queen accused of lying to MPs By Christian Gysin and Alasdair Glennie Byford's pension pot is one of the largest seen in the public sector and far exceeds the £1.75million amassed by former prime ministers Strolling down the road in his pink canvas shoes, he may look a little young to be enjoying a life of retired ease. But as a beneficiary of the BBC's extraordinary largesse, Mark Byford can count himself luckier than the most well-heeled of pensioners. The corporation's former deputy director general - whose £1million golden handshake was at the heart of the severance pay scandal - is now claiming an extra £163,400 a year of the licence fee as his pension, the Daily Mail can reveal. The former executive became a "deferred pensioner" at the age of just 55 when he celebrated his birthday on June 13 this year, meaning he is now able to claim 76 per cent of his full BBC entitlement just two years after receiving his enormous payoff. At £3.4million, Byford's pension pot is one of the largest seen in the public sector and far exceeds the £1.75million amassed by former prime ministers. Yesterday, Tory MP Steve Barclay said the sum was "extraordinary," adding: "It is further evidence of just how out of touch those at the top of the BBC have become from both their own staff and the licence-fee payer. It drives a coach and horses through the BBC's argument that he needed a payoff. He can expect to claim this pension for a very long time to come, draining the licence fee for years. Byford - who lives with his wife in a sprawling £1.2million five-bedroom home in Winchester, Hampshire - was handed a windfall of £1,022,000 when he left the BBC in 2011 after 31 years" service. It included a £474,500 "contractual redundancy payment, a further £474,500 "pay in lieu of notice" and £73,000 for "accrued leave" - or holidays he had not taken. The sum was criticised by the National Audit Office's devastating report into the payoff fiasco in July. The watchdog found Byford had worked eight months of his 12-month notice period, meaning he was paid at least £316,333 more than he was contractually owed. The deal was signed off by his close friend Mark Thompson, who was the BBC's director general at the time. During his tenure at the corporation, Byford ¿ formerly chief of the BBC World Service ¿ attracted controversy because of his £474,500 salary and his large expenses claims A recently uncovered memo entitled "Project Silver" shows Thompson personally drew up plans to pay him more than his contractual entitlement. It showed that one motivation for handing Byford a giant severance payoff was to compensate him for not being able to take his full £215,000-a-year pension, because he would have to leave before his 55th birthday. Grilled over the issue by the Public Accounts Committee on Monday, Thompson admitted he had known Byford for more than 30 years and still socialises with him. A recently uncovered memo shows Mark Thompson personally drew up plans to pay Byford more than his contractual entitlement It is thought the pair were so close at the BBC they were described as "brothers," but Thompson denied he made the payment because they were friends. Insisting it was "value for money," he said he made it to keep Byford "fully focused" on his job. During his tenure at the corporation, Byford - formerly chief of the BBC World Service - attracted controversy because of his £474,500 salary and his large expenses claims. In 2010, it he spent £5,000 on flights to the World Cup in South Africa. In June 2010, the BBC disclosed that it had a £2billion "black hole" in its pension fund. The corporation announced it was closing its final salary pension scheme for new staff and warned that existing staff would see their benefits sharply reduced. Byford has spent the past few months completing a book called A Name on a Wall, which will be published next in November by Random House. It tells the story of an American soldier in Vietnam named Larry Byford. Now he is retired from public life and earns £13,000 a month from his pension, Byford can enjoy the interests he lists in his Who's Who entry. These include "family, football, cricket, travel, rock music, the seaside, cathedrals, fell walking and swimming." 'Lipgloss Lucy': The £332,900-a-year HR director accused of changing evidence' Adams's lucrative BBC career, which has put her at the centre of the payoff scandal, will soon come to an end To staffers at the BBC, she is "Lipgloss Lucy," because in four years at the corporation she has never been seen without a layer of immaculately applied make-up. And appearing before MPs this week, Lucy Adams, the £332,900-a-year director of human resources, cut her usual, fragrant figure in a well-tailored suit, with a pair of glasses, perched Jackie O-style, on her head. Sipping cups of mineral water, and fiddling with her expensive jewellery, the lofty 48-year-old had come to give evidence about millions of pounds of unnecessary payoffs made to departing BBC executives on her watch. Perhaps, as with so many of the meetings she has breezed through in her long and successful career, the strikingly attractive Adams expected her televised exchange with the House of Commons" Public Accounts Committee to be a walk in the park. If so, she was rapidly disabused of that notion. For unlike so many of the men in suits who have helped Adams's climb up the greasy pole, Labour MP Margaret Hodge, the committee's tenacious chairman, was strangely immune to her charms. "I'm not having any more lies this afternoon," chided Hodge, during one heated exchange. You're developing a habit of changing your evidence. The changing evidence in question revolved around a previous appearance before the committee in which Adams claimed to know nothing about an email discussing a massive £1million redundancy payment to former BBC executive Mark Byford. But Adams had helped draft that very email, a fact she rather sheepishly decided to "clarify" last month. In another heated exchange about this staggering abuse of licence fee payers" money, Adams was told that her evidence should be taken by MPs with "a pinch of salt." She replied, brusquely: "That's grossly unfair." But the damage was done. It was a televised monstering. And worse still for Adams, it prompted no rallying defence at BBC headquarters. Instead, boorish cheering erupted in the sprawling central newsroom at New Broadcasting House, where many hard-working staff resent having to scrape by on a fraction of the vast salary earned by "Lipgloss Lucy." They will have gained at least a crumb of comfort from the fact that Adams's lucrative BBC career, which has put her at the centre of the payoff scandal, will soon come to an end. Though her departure was announced in August, she actually leaves next April. This gives her seven months, at full pay, to find new work. Giving evidence (left to right) Former BBC director general Mark Thompson; Marcus Agius, former Chairman of the BBC Executive Board Remuneration Committee; Sir Michael Lyons, former Trust Chairman; Nicholas Kroll, Director, BBC Trust; Lucy Adams, HR Director, BBC; Lord Patten, Chairman, BBC Trust; and Anthony Fry, BBC Trustee, sit before the Commons Public Accounts Committee Meanwhile, the BBC's many galley-slaves may also be pleased to discover that Adams's ordeal at the hands of the ferocious Mrs Hodge may not yet be over. "We are currently investigating whether there is any evidence that demonstrates whether Lucy Adams did mislead us," she told the Mail yesterday. "A whistle-blower sent an email suggesting that she had used the term "sweetener" to describe severance payments to departing staff. If we find that she misled us, we would have to recall her. A BBC spokesman, however, said the corporation is "completely satisfied with the information provided by Miss Adams to the committee." One area MPs may also want to investigate is the nature of the relationship between Adams and some of the former senior executives who benefited from her largesse. Take Sharon Baylay, the BBC's "marketing chief," who left in 2011 after less than two years in the post. She was granted a bafflingly generous payoff of £390,000. Intriguingly, Adams's Facebook page lists Baylay as one of her "friends." Another area that MPs may wish to investigate is Adams's extensive use of her BBC expense account to travel the world during her time in office. In April 2011, she visited India, Afghanistan and Pakistan, at licence fee payers" expense. Adams was told that her evidence should be taken by MPs with 'a pinch of salt' In March 2012, she was in Jerusalem. "Adams works in personnel," notes one observer. What the hell was she doing in all these exotic places that she couldn't have been doing behind her desk in London? Yesterday the corporation spokesman said: "The BBC's director of HR is required to visit employees based outside the UK. All these travel costs comply with the BBC's expenses policy. But for a woman earning £332,900 a year, Adams has certainly not shown herself to be shy about burdening licence fee payers with costs. For example, in November 2010 she claimed £23.50 on expenses for an Apple iPad charger. Last August, she submitted a £586 expense claim to cover a return trip from her summer holiday, after being called into the office at short notice. This, the BBC says, is also in line with policy. To say Adams divides opinion at the corporation hopelessly understates matters. After a long career in human resources, she joined the BBC in 2009. Initially, she was regarded as a breath of fresh air. No one had even heard of her predecessor. She, by contrast, set about touring every department and letting everyone know who she was. But then redundancies started coming, in large numbers. Adams became the very public face of the job loss programme, making her, as one journalist put it, "the lightning rod for everyone's grievances." One - surely apocryphal - piece of newsroom gossip has it that she was overheard discussing her new £1,200 handbag outside a meeting with the unions over job cuts. Little wonder that some in the news division refer to her, with a striking lack of originality, as the "wicked witch." Others make unkind remarks about her expensive wardrobe. "She's very tall, she's very thin, and loves to wear tight jeans and lacy white tops," says one female reporter. She is also famously monochrome, colourless in the way she dresses - it's always black, grey, white, and she likes silver jewellery. She is always styled to perfection, invariably tanned. One reason for her unpopularity revolves around the "grunts": the technicians, producers and camera personnel, the researchers on whose meticulousness the BBC's reputation for accuracy rests. They have endured years of pay freezes and pension cuts. In the old days this would not have mattered, for no one joined the BBC to get rich. But when executive salaries started matching, then outstripping, the private sector, resentments boiled over. "Lucy swooped down from HQ and was brought in to make the workforce "agile,"" complains one journalist. That was the word that was used. While junior staff were sacked in vast quantities, and subjected to pay freezes, bloated senior executives were given over-generous payoffs. Some £25million was paid to 150 top staffers - at least £2million more than contractual obligations. Adams was born Lucy Kate Germanda Hollis - her father worked for the BBC as an actor and writer, her mother as a secretary. She has two failed marriages behind her. The first was to Kevin Adams in August 1986, when she was 21. The pair had a daughter, now in her mid-20s. The second, to Sean Keogh, also ended and since 2007 she has lived with PR director Andrew Powell, known as Bob, in a £1.5million terrace house in Fulham, West London. Adams says the key to her success is her utter lack of "airs or graces." I deal with people exactly the same, whether they are the chairman or someone who is cleaning the office. Maybe so. But the true measure of how colleagues view the "authentic" Lucy Adams was perhaps felt this week in the cheers that her humiliation sparked at New Broadcasting House.