Tony Hall unveils plans to tackle wage gap at BBC

Tony Hall, the director-general of the BBC, unveiled plans on Wednesday of how the broadcaster intended to handle both the gender pay gap between its TV and radio presenters after a controversial summer.

After the announcement, several high profile women at the BBC, led by Jane Garvey of Woman's Hour circulated a statement on social media with the hashtags #BBCWomen and #EqualPay.

The statement called for the "swift release of meaningful data that we can trust and for solutions that will rectify injustices to be put in place before the end of the year."

It had been reported that Hall made contact with accountants at Price Waterhouse Coopers and law firm Eversheds Sutherland to conduct a review on the disparities between BBC's world services staff and the rest of the news department – another major row underway at the BBC – but allegedly the overall scope of the project has widened since.

After BBC made the salaries of its highest paid on-air talent public in July, it provoked considerable outrage both inside and outside the organisation, with the majority of its list being male with the three highest paid of them making in excess of £2.2m.

Only one-third of the 96 on-screen stars earning over £150,000 a year were women, with the highest paid female being Strictly Come Dancing host Claudia Winkleman who was earning £450,000.

A separate review reported that former Top Gear host Chris Evans pocketed as much as the top 10% of non-Caucasian stars combined.

The BBC boss promised to close the gap by 2020 after receiving letters from more than 40 of the BBC's biggest female names demanding he take action on the matter, many have said that timeframe is not quick enough.

Hall said he would "make sure that, where there are differences in pay, they're justified," adding "if it throws up any issues, we'll deal with them immediately."

He also noted that the broadcaster looked to address representation as well as salaries, saying the BBC had set targets "not just on gender, but on diversity."