TV Licensing has just published its annual review for 2020/21.
The review - which comes hot on the heels of TV Licensing's other favourite annual event, the publication of black & white TV licence statistics - gives all manner of information about how the TV licence is administered and enforced.
It has to be said that the document is getting slimmer by the year, which is no doubt attributable to TV Licensing's nervousness of giving away too many secrets at a time when the very future of the TV licence is under the spotlight.
The single-sided review is broken down into a number of sections, which we summarise below. It should be noted that there is no way of verifying any of the information included in the review - it is simply the word of the BBC, which doesn't mean a lot.
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Headline Statistics:
There are 24.8 million licences in force (down from 25.5 million last year and 25.8 million the year before that); the cost of the TV licence is £159 (as of 1st April 2021); the licence fee generated £3.75 billion in revenue.
Supporting Customers:
This section trumpets the claim that TV Licensing engaged with over 550 local groups. It also claims that 136,300 customers have signed up to the Simple Payment Plan, which is designed to extract money from those struggling financially. TV Licensing also claims to have updated its advice on scams.
TV Licensing Online:
According to TV Licensing it generated 3.6 million sales online. There were 35.6 million visits to the TV Licensing website resulting in 9.7 million transactions, despite its abysmal performance and increased down time. TV Licensing also claims that 11.2 million customers received their licence by email.
TV Licences for the Over-75s:
Since the universal concession ended on 1st August 2020, there have been over 2.8 million TV licences purchased by over-75s; more than 775,000 applications have been received for "free" TV licences by those in receipt of pension credit; around 300,000 over-75s have failed to make new arrangements. The BBC has said the new over-75 TV licence rules will be enforced from 1st August 2021.
How Customers Pay:
According to TV Licensing, payments are received by the following means:
- 75.4% by Direct Debit;
- 12.8% by credit or debit card;
- 4.2% by payment card;
- 3.3% by PayPoint;
- 3.3% by cheque;
- 0.9% by savings card;
- 0.1% by online banking;
- 0.1% at a Post Office (CI and IoM only).
We would remind all readers that payment by cheque is far less convenient for TV Licensing and is therefore positively encouraged. It is also more economical to pay the licence fee in one single installment if you are able to do so.
Collecting the TV Licence Fee:
In 2020/21 it cost the BBC £136.5 million to collect the TV licence fee. The cost was broken down as follows:
- £52.2 million on collection costs, including customer services and enforcement;
- £16.7 million on communications;
- £48.0 million on changes to the TV licence fee (whatever that means);
- £13.6 million on postage costs;
- £3.2 million on administration and contract management;
- £2.7 million on depreciation of new systems.
By way of comparison, it cost £119.5 million to collect the TV licence fee in 2019/20.
Visiting:
As readers will be aware already, TV Licensing carried out far fewer visits in 2020/21 due to the coronavirus pandemic (641,000 properties this year, compared to 2.3 million last year). According to TV Licensing, this resulted in 62,077 being "caught" without a TV licence, compared to 174,416 last year. Remember that being "caught" is not the same as being convicted.
Customer Service:
Despite TV Licensing trying its best to frustrate the complaints process the number of complaints almost doubled in the last year (20,904 compared to 11,100 in 2019/20).
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Now for the snippets of information TV Licensing omitted to include in its review.
Firstly, the evasion rate was not mentioned. This is not an exact figure, but is TV Licensing best estimate of the proportion of households receiving TV programmes (or BBC on-demand programmes) without being covered by a valid TV licence. This has been steadily climbing over the last few years and stood at 7.25% in 2019/20. If the previous upward trend has been maintained it is likely to be much closer to 8% now. The evasion rate is almost twice as high in Scotland as it is in England.
The annual review makes no mention of cancellations either. The most recent monthly statistics available, from March 2021, show that just over 89,000 licences were cancelled. Looking back over the last few years, this monthly figure has remained broadly stable notwithstanding a sharp dip at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
You can view the TV Licensing Annual Review for 2020/21 here.
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