IT HAS emerged BBC Scotland has lost more than £21 million over the past two years due to a drop in commissions from the UK network.

Published in the organisation's latest annual review, the huge sum confirms the financial scale of the fall in commissions recently revealed by regulator Ofcom, and has led to calls for a Scottish parliamentary inquiry.

The new figures - which will rub salt in controller Ken MacQuarrie's wounds following director general Mark Thompson's recent public criticism of BBC Scotland - indicate that the loss of programmes such as Monarch Of The Glen, 55 Degrees North and The Saturday Show have hit the corporation hard north of the Border.

The value of BBC Scotland commissions from the network fell from £60.4m in the financial year 2004/05 to £38.9m in 2006/07.

It also emerged that the amount of money it receives for regional programming from BBC headquarters in London fell by nearly £1m over the same period. This is despite the fact that the corporation's share of licence fee income rose well in excess of inflation during both years.

In total, BBC Scotland's income over the two years fell from £169.6m to £143.5m, hitting not only the organisation but also independent producers who depend on its commissions.

Robert Beveridge, a lecturer in media policy at Napier University, said: "There's definitely a problem with falling commissions at BBC Scotland and also STV. The bigger question is what solutions might there be to it?

"Will Vicki Nash Scottish director of Ofcom go down the quota route? Might the BBC Trust get involved? And what is the new Scottish Executive going to do about it?"

He added that, with plans afoot to launch a new cross-party group on the media, an investigation should be launched at Holyrood.

The revelations follow Thompson's attack on BBC Scotland at Ofcom's conference on public service broadcasting to the nations and regions, in Cardiff last Friday.

He told the audience: "We have had a few years where we haven't had as many strong network ideas coming from Scotland as we would like. Ken MacQuarrie would agree with that."

A spokesman for BBC Scotland said that network commissions go through dips due to their cyclical nature, and said the decline was mainly due to fewer drama programmes.

He said that BBC Scotland was forecasting an improvement of £11m this year due to shows such as Angels Of The North, Stephen Fry - HIV And Me, and a new Jonathan Meades series. This would still be about £10m short of the 2004/05 figure, however.

The spokesman added that the decline in money for BBC Scotland's regional output was due to centralising functions such as human resources and finance rather than a reduction in programme budgets, which have remained at around the same level.