The Government has allowed the BBC to trial a new system of monthly TV licence fee payments.
Under current arrangements anyone buying their first TV licence by monthly Direct Debit has to make double payments for the first six months. After these six monthly payments the customer is effectively six months in credit and paying towards their next TV licence. The customer cannot claim a refund of that six months credit until they cancel their TV licence. As the number of cancellations is very low, it is estimated that the BBC has benefited to the tune of £1bn as a result of the flawed system. Furthermore, as most well off customers can afford to pay the £150.50 TV licence fee in full, the system penalises those less well off customers choosing to split the cost monthly.
Monthly Direct Debit customers selected for the trial system, which begins on 1st April 2018, will pay one twelfth of the £150.50 fee each month. As a result they will not be paying six months in advance and their account will not end up six months in credit. Initially the trial will only be open to certain groups of customers, including those nominated by debt advice charities.
The trial payment plan will help manage the cost of living for those who might struggle to pay the licence fee, and was one of the key recommendations from the 2015 independent review on TV licence fee enforcement carried out by David Perry QC. He recommended that the Government should make available simple and flexible payment plans for those facing difficulty in paying the TV licence fee.
Culture Secretary Matt Hancock said: "The licence fee enables the BBC to produce fantastic programmes that we want everyone to enjoy and be entertained and informed by. But we know that sometimes households may struggle to pay the licence fee, which is why we’ve worked with the BBC to develop a simpler and more flexible payment plan to help those on low incomes."
It is expected that simplifying the payment plans will have the added benefit of reducing the amount of prosecutions for TV licence evasion. There were 159,637 convictions for evasion in 2016 and the BBC estimates that 6-7% households currently evade the fee.
Pipa Doubtfire, the BBC's Head of Revenue Management, said: "The BBC has worked with DCMS on the best way to implement David Perry QC's recommendation and we welcome Government legislation enabling us to run the Simple Payment Plan trial, which has been designed to help those most in need."
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10 comments:
TV Licence is a rip of and cost to much
Why not make it subscription like sky then it would at least give people an option.
Wait a minute...this isn't new!! When I got my own flat 11 years ago I paid double for the first 6 months EVEN THOUGH the flat I'd just left had a fully paid, valid license!! 😬
Read paragraph 3 Unknown. People currently pay double for the first six months. Those selected for the trial will pay 12 equal monthly instalments each year.
Data protection implications... https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/new_licence_payment_plans_and_da#outgoing-745130
That.. but no thanks. Don't need one
Would like discount for news because most of it is propaganda and not news
the tv licence should be abolished as the bbc gets millions of pounds from oversees on selling/renting programmes
"the BBC estimates that 6-7% households currently evade the fee" The BBC is wrong about that on account of the statistical data it uses being inappropriate. The evasion model uses data from The Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board (BARB) about the percentage of households owning a TV. The BBC upped it's estimated evasion rate when BARB upped it's figure for households with TVs. The trouble is that the BARB figure went up because they started counting TVs not used to watch broadcast television. The BBC knew this but revised its model to include this data anyway. So the BBC is deliberately counting households with TVs in it's evasion model, not households with TV receivers. Given that this evasion model drives the whole licence fee "enforcement" shebang it's pretty outrageous in my opinion that they deliberately and knowingly base it on inappropriate data. https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/licence_fee_evasion_model#outgoing-747722
It's funny how the BBC doesn't want people to know that TV Licensing is its own brand and that the BBC enforces the licensing system (including prosecuting well over 100,000 people every year, mostly women). Of course it makes it easier for them to send their insulting and threatening letters to millions of households every month. They'd never dare do that if "BBC" was on the letterhead.
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