Former ABC board member Janet Albrechtsen says the public broadcaster's managing director Mark Scott has failed in his role as editor-in-chief of the organisation.

Interviewed on ABC radio on Thursday, Ms Albrechtsen,  a columnist for The Australian newspaper who served on the ABC board from 2005 to 2010, said while announcing a $254 million funding cut to the ABC on Wednesday, Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull had delivered a "strong rebuke" to Mr Scott's leadership of the public broadcaster.

Speaking in Adelaide on Wednesday, Mr Turnbull announced he would recommend to the board that the position of ABC editor-in-chief no longer be combined with that of managing director.

"It creates the impression that the managing director is directly in charge of ABC news and current affairs which he is not, and given the wide range of his responsibilities, could not be," Mr Turnbull said.

Ms Albrechtsen said Mr Turnbull's comments were a "direct hit" on Mr Scott's claims to be editor-in-chief of the broadcaster. Prior to leading the ABC, Mr Scott was editorial director of The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.

"Mark Scott was hired for the job of managing director because he said, and members of the board agreed, that the ABC needed a strong editor-in-chief," Ms Albrechtsen said.

"Mark Scott came to the ABC as managing director, purporting to be a strong editor-in-chief. I think he has failed in that role.

"I think by Malcolm Turnbull saying we need to separate those roles out, he is saying that Mark Scott has failed in that role."

Ms Albrechtsen made the comments as Mr Scott prepared to appear before a Senate hearing in Canberra on Thursday night, at which he is likely to face questions about his performance and which programs or services will be abolished following its funding cut.

A spokesman for Mr Scott on Thursday said: "The role of the managing director is a matter entirely for the ABC board and not for the minister."

Ms Albrechtsen, a long time critic of the ABC who in July was appointed by the Abbott government to the panel overseeing appointments to the ABC and SBS boards, said the cut to the broadcaster's budget review was "long overdue".

"I've always been disappointed that there hasn't been more of a willingness to acknowledge that any organisation of that size is going to have inefficiencies that on a routine basis need to be reined in," she said.

"Before I came on this interview for example you had a sound technician checking out my voice. I do lots of radio interviews on other stations – I've never had a sound technician check out whether you can hear me correctly."

Interviewed on radio on Thursday morning, Finance Minister Mathias Cormann denied the reduction in funding to the ABC announced by Mr Turnbull amounted to a cut.

"Well, they're not cuts," Senator Cormann said.

"Well, the ABC has been exempted from efficiency dividends for the last 20 years, efficiency dividends which apply to every other department in government, every other agency of government that is funded by the taxpayer. We believe it's important that the ABC, like every other taxpayer funded organisation …operates efficiently."

Asked whether Tony Abbott told the truth when, prior to the 2013 election he said there would be "no cuts to the ABC or SBS" under his government, Senator Cormann replied: "Well, the Prime Minister absolutely told the truth."

"We are not making cuts," he said. "What we are making sure happens with the ABC is what happens with every other taxpayer-funded organisation across government and that is to ensure that it operates as efficiently as possible. And that is our responsibility. We need to ensure that taxpayers' money is treated with respect.

"Well, I mean the Labor Party imposed efficiency dividends across government as well… the Labor Party never said that making sure that the health department, education department and other agencies across government had to operate efficiently, that that was cutting their funding. I've never heard Labor say that an efficiency dividend was tantamount to a cut."

Follow us on Twitter