Friday, 21 November 2008

Time to stand up to the TV licence bullies


By Alex Singleton
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 20/11/2008

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If the sack-loads of mail arriving at The Daily Telegraph are anything to go by, TV Licensing has made a resounding success of enraging the general public.

Law-abiding citizens have been inundating us with stories of how they’ve been threatened with investigations and prosecution, either because TV Licensing’s database is clapped out, rather like my must-replace-soon television at home, or because they don’t have a television.

No one likes bullies, so I decided it was time to turn the tables on TV Licensing – which is contracted to private companies by the BBC – and go and investigate them. First stop was to ring their brand reputation consultants, Fishburn Hedges, and ask to spend a morning riding on a detector van. I wanted to discover why some readers without televisions had received unpleasant “official warning” letters year after year, when TV Licensing could have just used its vans which it says are “capable of detecting the use of TV receiving equipment within 20 seconds”.But TV Licensing rejected my request citing the confidentiality of evaders. Confidentially doesn’t usually seem to be a concern: they happily print “notice of impending action” on the outside of their threatening letters, but I could see their point. So I suggested that I could just be shown inside a detector van, or even just see the outside; these requests were also denied. They really didn’t want me anywhere near their “fleet” of vans, as the lady from Fishburn insisted on calling it.

The BBC refuses to disclose how the vans work. Barrister Michael Shrimpton reckons that the evidence, therefore, is likely to have “little weight in court”, and I couldn’t find any examples in which a prosecution had used such evidence. “There’s a view that the vans are empty,” says Sean Gabb, director of the Libertarian Alliance, “and I believe it. The BBC just looks at a database of addresses to see if people have a licence or not.” He reckons that detector vans are simply used “to frighten people”.

The procurement documentation I’ve seen from the BBC suggests that they don’t have much faith in these vans’ effectiveness, either: when refreshing their “fleet” this year, they only put in a procurement request for five vans for the whole country. The BBC has refused to answer a Freedom of Information Act request about them, arguing that if the number of vans was known, public perception of their usefulness would be undermined.

Finding evaders actually relies on TV Licensing sending visiting officers to knock on the doors, without the aid of vans. Some officers are self-employed and are paid £20 if the resident signs up to a direct debit, or £18 if they pay in full there and then. Others are paid a mix of salary and commission, including that paid if a prosecution occurs.

This made me feel a little queasy. Is a commission scheme, the norm for annoying door-to-door salesmen, at all appropriate when the self-employed staff can threaten prosecution? There have certainly been cases in which severe pressure has been put on residents, compelling them to tell an officer numerous times to leave a property.

In 2005, a visiting officer was convicted of assault against an Ormskirk resident who claimed he did not need a licence and started filming the officer. Two months ago an officer was convicted in Maidstone Crown Court of perverting the course of justice and four charges of false accounting after he fabricated confessions by four members of the public whom he hadn’t even visited, echoing an almost identical earlier case in Wales.

The quest for commission payments can prove a great irritation to innocent citizens who don’t see why they should have to let visiting officers into their homes, and it can cause particularly high levels of anxiety among the very old or those with mental health problems. Officers receive a payment if they verify that the resident has an existing television licence, but they get nothing if they are only able to get the resident’s say-so that they are licensed, or that they don’t use a television. Their staff has no special legal powers, but TV Licensing’s stream of letters implies that its officers – none of whom is a public servant – have a right to enter people’s homes.

Perhaps something can be done about this, though. Until November 28, the BBC Trust isrunning a public consultation on TV Licensing. Given that the operation eats up around five per cent of the BBC’s budget while causing worrying levels of irritation to lawful citizens, isn’t it time we made it clear to the Beeb that TV Licensing’s bullying tactics should no longer be tolerated?