BBC head of political programmes Fran Unsworth has been promoted to replace Adrian van Klaveren as head of newsgathering, overseeing hundreds of journalists and producers in the corporation's bureaux around the world.

Ms Unsworth's appointment comes after Mr van Klaveren was promoted to become BBC News's deputy director and controller of production earlier this month.

She will take charge of the BBC's newsgathering operation at a time when it is facing 15% cuts as part of director general Mark Thompson's cost-cutting regime.

However, Mr Thompson has also promised extra investment for newsgathering to beef up the BBC's coverage of the Middle East and the Islamic world.

Ms Unsworth is moving on from BBC political programmes after more than four years in charge.

She was heavily involved in the review of political output ordered by former BBC director general Greg Dyke nearly three years ago.

This led to the Politics Show, presented by Jeremy Vine, replacing On the Record as the BBC's flagship Sunday lunchtime political discussion programme.

The review also resulted in the launch of new daytime politics show The Daily Politics and late night weekly show This Week, both presented by Andrew Neil.

However, other innovations to come out of the review, including a BBC2 politics show fronted by Rod Liddle and aimed at a youth audience, proved less successful.

Prior to her appointment as head of political programmes in July 2000, Ms Unsworth was home news editor for two years. She began her BBC career in local radio, before moving on to Radio 1's Newsbeat as a producer.

In 1990 she became a producer and deputy editor of Radio 4's World at One and PM news programmes, travelling abroad to cover major stories including the 1991 Gulf war.

Ms Unsworth moved to the BBC News social affairs unit in 1996 and spent two years in the department as assignments editor.

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