TV Licence Overview 2016

TV licence campaigner Caroline Lévesque-Bartlett has just published a very informative article containing TV licence statistics for 2016.

We would encourage you to pop across to Caroline's website to read her words in full, but we have summarised some of the key points below:

• In 2016 Capita TV Licensing, the BBC contractor responsible for enforcing the TV licence fee, started prosecution proceedings against 184,895 people across the UK.
• Of the 184,895 Capita TV Licensing started proceedings against, a penalty was imposed by the courts in 163,280 cases, including:
• 140,765 convictions in England;
• 10,932 convictions in Wales;
• 7,939 disposals in Scotland (mainly by way of fiscal fines);
• 3,644 convictions in Northern Ireland.
• In total there were 21,312 cases where Capita TV Licensing, for whatever reason, failed to secure a conviction.
• The average fine imposed for TV licence evasion was as follows:
• £188 in England;
• £123 in Wales;
• £96 in Scotland;
• £86 in Northern Ireland.
• The maximum fine for TV licence evasion is £1,000, but fines are rarely anywhere near that value as you can see from the averages above. A person cannot be imprisoned for TV licence evasion, but they can be for defaulting on their TV licence fines:
• In England & Wales there were 29 people imprisoned for defaulting on TV licence fines, of which 12 were female and 17 were male. The average length of imprisonment was 21 days.
• In Scotland no-one was imprisoned for defaulting on TV licence fines.
• In Northern Ireland there were 61 people imprisoned for defaulting on TV licence fines, of which 32 were female and 29 were male. The average length of imprisonment was 7.8 days.
• The area with the largest number of Capita TV Licensing prosecutions and convictions was Cleveland, which coincidentally (or not) is in the 10% most deprived areas of the UK. We have previously discussed, at quite some length, some of the underhand tactics used by TV Licensing goons in that particular neck of the woods.

You will find much more information and commentary in Caroline's original article.

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