Question about TV licence

[Deleted User]

Cornucopia wrote: »

The TV Licensing website is back up again, and states this:-



https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/about/foi-administering-the-licence-fee-AB20

I'm not entirely happy with the tone of this, but it's clear what it means.

Are you happy with the tone of the answer to this line from the website ?
"What are your rules of conduct for enquiry officers ?"
part of the answer includes " We can enter the property only with permission. If not given permission they will end their visit and MAY use detection equipment . "
Do you think this is the reason so many are taken to Magistrates courts and many leave with a criminal record ? DETECTION EQUIPMENT !

Cornucopia

Houbara wrote: »

Are you happy with the tone of the answer to this line from the website ?
"What are your rules of conduct for enquiry officers ?"
part of the answer includes " We can enter the property only with permission. If not given permission they will end their visit and MAY use detection equipment . "

Yes. As a general point, their use of Electronic Detection is specifically authorised in law, and I am happy with the principle of electronic surveillance of TV reception offences by means that are (a) not physically intrusive into people's homes, and (b) automatically select out people who are not receiving broadcasts by traditional means (and therefore cannot result in false positives).

Some people in the past have complained that the process may breach the privacy of evaders, since their TV channel choice will be made known to TVL staff, but I suspect that a Court would see this as proportionate... if it ever came to Court... which it hasn't.

Whether Electronic Detection is technically feasible, and sufficiently cost effective to warrant routine use is a whole other can of worms. Whatever the truth of it, it is not in routine use.

Do you think this is the reason so many are taken to Magistrates courts and many leave with a criminal record ? DETECTION EQUIPMENT !

No.

I think I told you before that the vast, vast majority of TVL cases are based on confessions taken by fair means or foul. Second to that comes a smaller number where TVL were refused a confession (which is a defendant's right under PACE), but they proceeded anyway based on first-hand observation of an offence by field staff.

Electronic Detection has never been used in open court in the UK, and no prosecution has ever been based upon it. (I believe that there may be a FOI response from the BBC that confirms this).

Cornucopia

Houbara wrote: »

Not sure why you are quoting article 14 of the HRA.. That has a wide range of grounds to protect against discrimination which does nt appear to have anything to do with cold calling.eg sex,race,colour, language,religion etc whats that got to do with checking if you have paid for a TV licence and you view live scheduled TV broadcasts ?

My comment (if you check back) was in response to your claim that the Courts are not bound by HRA. This was wrong, and my citation proved it. Conveniently, the very same judgement also references the "right to private life" aspect of Article 8, too. So Article 8 is very much in the scope of the higher UK courts (as you would expect).

If there is confusion, there, I suspect it is this: the Courts are bound by HRA, both in their rulings, and as public authorities in their own right, their processes. However, the Government is not. The ideal is that every piece of legislation and every aspect of the operation of Government including all public authorities is compliant with HRA. However, where an issue arises, and the Courts cannot rationalise the law against the human rights principles, they can "ask" Government to resolve the issue by changing the law. If the Government chooses not to do that, they can issue a derogation, which is effectively an instruction that the human rights principle has its extent limited in the context of the particular issue. However, such derogations are extremely rare, as they tend to set a poor precedent, reflect badly on Ministers and have limitations in use.

Yes of course you can send Capita packing, they don t have any immediate rights of entry.
We are exactly the same and all the suppliers now inform their customers that they do not have to admit meter readers.Its been like that for years.We are ordered not to be pushy at all and suppliers will pay a customer £30 compensation if someone oversteps the mark and becomes impolite and the suppliers receive a complaint..

Good.

In which case, I'm not sure I understand your reference in post #32 to being accused of "harassment". Surely, if someone has got to that stage, you are already clear that they don't want you there, and you should already have left?

I still have a right of access due to everyone who wants to be supplied gas ,electric and water have to agree a contract. Its in every ones T and C s that they have to agree to let us in to inspect meters.

I did mention contractual issues. I won't comment further on the detail, because I am really not sure about it, and it is off-topic anyway.

Clearly contractual considerations do not apply to TV Licensing as no contract exists between BBC-TVL and people who do not have a TV Licence. Which is part of the problem.

Not sure if TV licence evasion is on the increase...

No idea. And BBC figures are notoriously vague.

I suspect it is given the popularity of Netflix and Amazon Prime which together costs about the same as the TV licence.

You can use the video-on-demand elements of Netflix and Amazon without requiring a TV Licence - so to conflate that with "evasion" is not correct. I also don't understand the relevance of Netflix and Amazon together costing "about the same as a TV Licence". Do many people have both? And if they do, what is the relevance to the TV Licence they may well not require?

Capita/TVL appear to be increasing their numbers who they order to attend the local Magistrate with an incredible number of 200,000 a year . 10% of Magistrates court appearances are taken up on this waste.

The numbers vary by year, but I'm not sure that they show a clear trend in any direction. Clearly, like a lot of law enforcement activities, the BBC and Capita have a divided "loyalty" - on the one hand, they (presumably) would like to catch all the evaders at any given time, but also they know that if evasion stopped (or was significantly reduced) they would lose that justification for their unlawful, draconian approach.

Just as a point of pedantry, Capita/TVL cannot and do not "order [people] to attend the local Magistrate". When someone receives a Summons, it is an order from the Court that an allegation has been made against them, which they can choose to defend or not. There is no requirement at this level of law for anyone to attend, nor are any such orders made.

The BBC need to quickly either get a better way of trapping the thieves or of going to a subscription or even as Jeremy Corbyn suggested, a "digital licence "which covers everyone and would take into account those of low income who cannot afford it.

Subscription and relating the fee to ability to pay... Yes Please!

silverwhistle

Houbara wrote: »

Capita have a right ,backed by the law, to cold call those who they suspect to be evading the TV licence.

What would be the grounds of such suspicion? The mere non-existence of a licence hardly seems sufficient..

I want to see a robust licence evasion team at work ,and I do not care if occasionally one or two employees step over the line sometimes and end up on Youtube

Really? Here you are complaining about lawbreakers at the same time as condoning lawbreaking in other circumstances.



Do your employers know about your opinions and what you express on here? Courtesy of many years in the ESI I have a number of thousands of shares, and I really don't want the general public's largely co-operative attitude to the energy companies to be soiled by employees like you. The sheer friction, effort and cost involved in organising appointments is a pain in the proverbial.



Abstracting electricity is a different issue, it has always been with us and it has always had areas where it is more prevalent. Blethering on about suppliers moderating their language due to fearing customer might change suppliers is an irrelevant red-herring. Perhaps more should be done against abstraction but one shouldn't conflate all these issues.

Cornucopia

silverwhistle wrote: »

Really? Here you are complaining about lawbreakers at the same time as condoning lawbreaking in other circumstances.

I imagine that quite a few people share our old friend's views on this - taking the view that crimes committed by the Public are way more serious than those committed by the Powers That Be. (Even where, like with TVL, the "official" offences are significantly more serious than those of the Public).

I imagine there is a whole lot of schadenfreude and retributive type baggage supporting those views.

There are also some somewhat mixed-up views amongst politicians, as well, if the difficulties of getting them to even ask the pertinent questions of BBC-TVL are anything to go by.

If anyone in authority IS reading this, these are those questions:-

- How does the BBC intend that its processes should work (a) for evaders, and (b) for innocent (legally Licence-free) people?

- Where is the BBC's intended process in the legislation? How is it defined, when/where was it designed and what was the legal framework at the time?

- What level of discretion has the BBC presumed in adopting that process, and where does that discretion originate?

- What is the relationship to Article 8, and where is the BBC's publicity around the legal framework that addresses the legal requirement that the rules should be presented to the Public as specific, explicit, understandable, accessible, proportionate and proof against arbitrariness?

- Has the BBC consulted the Home Office on its detailed PACE compliance, and if not, why not?

- Who writes the TVL enforcement letters and what are they thinking?

Cornucopia

Recent figures on TV Licence prosecutions:

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/07/17/70_pc_tv_licensing_convictions_women/

The ratio of women:men being prosecuted by BBC-TVL has increased again, now standing at 71.9% - meaning women are 2.5 times more likely to be prosecuted for this offence than men.

Interesting that the TVL official comment from the link above would appear to be an outright lie. They said: "An independent review of licence fee enforcement said the TV Licensing system is broadly fair and proportionate and found no evidence to suggest enforcement is unfairly targeted at women". What the Review actually recommended was this: "The BBC and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport should explore ways to investigate and consider the gender disparity in TV licence prosecutions".

The report from that exercise is here:-
TV Licensing Gender Disparity

[Deleted User]

Cornucopia wrote: »

Recent figures on TV Licence prosecutions:

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/07/17/70_pc_tv_licensing_convictions_women/

The ratio of women:men being prosecuted by BBC-TVL has increased again, now standing at 71.9% - meaning women are 2.5 times more likely to be prosecuted for this offence than men.

Interesting that the TVL official comment from the link above would appear to be an outright lie. They said: "An independent review of licence fee enforcement said the TV Licensing system is broadly fair and proportionate and found no evidence to suggest enforcement is unfairly targeted at women". What the Review actually recommended was this: "The BBC and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport should explore ways to investigate and consider the gender disparity in TV licence prosecutions".

The report from that exercise is here:-
TV Licensing Gender Disparity

In my 20 years of visiting householders reading utility meters, I am much more likely to encounter female occupiers rather than males.At a guess I d say its at the same level as the reports of 70% female prosecutions, so 70%/women 30% men..
Men are more likely to be at work/the pub/playing golf etc women are more likely to be "home makers ".looking after pre school kids.
Are you suggesting that TVL go for the more compliant option in targeting women ?
Capita will work the same hours as me I would have thought, say 8.30 to 4.30 or even 10 am to 6 pm and therefore more likely to knock on the door of a women at home

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/news/press_releases/2017/licence_fee_collection
Any comment on the BBC s official figures on how many TV Licences the Enquiry Officers of Capita gain on behalf of the BBC ?
. They say a figure of 298,000 evaders were caught from approx 3 million visits for the year 2015-2016
That is 18% less than they caught in 2010-11.
Caused, they say by being focused on a more challenging group of delayers and evaders

Cornucopia

Houbara wrote: »

In my 20 years of visiting householders reading utility meters, I am much more likely to encounter female occupiers rather than males.At a guess I d say its at the same level as the reports of 70% female prosecutions, so 70%/women 30% men..
Men are more likely to be at work/the pub/playing golf etc women are more likely to be "home makers ".

Yes... but the group of all home makers is not necessarily the same as the group of all TV Licence evaders. Reading the report, the BBC has not drawn any firm conclusions, although it points to a range of factors in the gender disparity.

Overall, do you think that women are 2.5 times more likely to be Licence evaders than men - making it unique in British justice? If you were aware that another offence (say Assault or Speeding) was disproportionately leading to the prosecution of women, would you say that was appropriate?

The other issue that I don't think that the BBC has recognised is that the figures are simply a snapshot of a changing situation. Around 10 years ago, the gender balance was much more equal (around 55% female, 45% male), and in the intervening period it has steadily shifted, with the female figure increasing every year. I'd like the BBC to have recognised this, and to have explained how its claimed factors have led to that dramatic change.

Are you suggesting that TVL go for the more compliant option in targeting women ?

I think there will be a variety of factors, and the report confirms this. You say "compliant", the report says "females are more likely to engage with a caller, and less likely to be dismissive than males". I do not believe that the gender disparity in prosecutions adequately reflects the gender balance of offending, and this is an issue for justice.

Capita will work the same hours as me I would have thought, say 8.30 to 4.30 or even 10 am to 6 pm and therefore more likely to knock on the door of a women at home

TVL work extended hours - to 9pm Mon-Sat, and Sundays, too.

Any comment on the BBC s official figures on how many TV Licences the Enquiry Officers of Capita gain on behalf of the BBC ?
. They say a figure of 298,000 evaders were caught from approx 3 million visits for the year 2015-2016
That is 18% less than they caught in 2010-11.
Caused, they say by being focused on a more challenging group of delayers and evaders

If they say that, then I'm sure its true. I'm not sure it's fair or correct to use the word "challenging". The legal reality is that the system that the BBC has implemented has some key legal and practical weaknesses. Some of those weaknesses correspond to citizens' pre-existing rights. That may appear to the BBC's myopic understanding of the situation as a "challenge", but in reality it is the BBC's decision to challenge and undermine those rights that is the problem.

One of my main objections to the BBC-TVL regime (and the gender disparity is an aspect of this) is that a knowledgeable person is likely to be able to break the law with impunity, whilst at the same time more cooperative people who are casual/careless evaders (or in some cases not evaders at all) are prosecuted.

It's one of many failings of the TVL system.

[Deleted User]

Cornucopia wrote: »

Yes... but the group of all home makers is not necessarily the same as the group of all TV Licence evaders.

Who actually gets prosecuted in cases like these? Is it the person at home when Capita turn up? The householder? Or do they use the electoral roll?

[Deleted User]

The traffic police are targeting males, specifically young males catching them speeding.
I would guess that 70% of speeding tickets are dished out to males
More "gender disparity " ?
Anyway, what difference does it make whether they re male or female TV licence thieves. A thief is a thief. If more women get caught its purely because more women open the front door and engage in conversation with the Enquiry Officers .
Capita will mostly run their business with their employees on flexi hours, like we do, so their employees will want to get home at a reasonable time and work normal hours. 8 am to 10 pm are peak hours and 3.30 pm to 6 pm..
All my TVL delivery work where I hand deliver the TV licence reminders all the addresses were listed as "Occupier ".. I only ever knew their name if it coincided with a meter reading visit..which it quite often did because we are allocated work based on post code only