Former Conservative cabinet minister Chris Patten (aka Lord Patten of Barnes) is set to be named as BBC Trust chairman, replacing incumbent Sir Michael Lyons when he steps down in May.

Patten, who is currently chancellor of Oxford University, is believed to be the preferred choice of culture secretary Jeremy Hunt. All that stands between him and the post now is a formal interview with David Cameron and Nick Clegg, which is expected to go his way.

Although Patten purportedly sits at the liberal end of the Tory movement, he has long been regarded as a safe pair of hands by senior figures within his party. His crowning achievement to date was his time as Governor of Hong Kong during the handover of the island to Chinese control. However there are many in political circles who believe he’;d have been a good PM if he had stuck with party politics.

The fact that the Tory leadership has chosen Patten is interesting, since there are many in the party who would like to see the corporation overseen by a much tougher right wing Chairman. It seems to suggest that there is a latent sympathy for the BBC within the leadership that is not necessarily shared by the party’;s rank and file. No official comment has been made yet, with an announcement due in early March.

Echoing his time in Hong Kong, Patten will join the BBC at a critical juncture in the corporation’;s future. Top of the agenda is the current programme of financial cutbacks. Last week saw the BBC promise widespread cuts in online expenditure. This week, it is the turn of the TV Current Affairs dept, which will see 31 posts axed in London and Manchester.

Turning to that story, the BBC’;s slightly unbelievable in-house line is that the changes “are designed to ensure the BBC can keep pace with the fast-changing media environment while continuing to offer high quality documentaries and high impact investigative journalism.”

The corporation goes on to explain that “the aim of the restructure is to increase flexibility by allowing programme makers to vary staff levels to manage peaks and troughs in production, ensuring a more effective balance between full-time staff and people working on short-term contracts.”

However a less woolly assessment is contained in a quote by Clive Edwards, Executive Editor & Commissioning Editor, TV Current Affairs who said: “Because rates of production fluctuate it has become uneconomic to keep the current number of staff on full-time payroll. Although this has been a very hard decision to come to, I am confident we can continue to produce programmes of the very highest quality and impact.” Currently, the BBC is the single biggest UK broadcaster of current affairs with 139 hours of TV current affairs planned for 2011/12 and 300 hours on radio.