Protect women from TV licence bullies, BBC told

THE BBC has been ordered to overhaul the way it collects TV licences in order to protect women.

The Public Accounts Committee today says the Corporation must ‘rapidly’ change its approach to collection.

In a damning report, it reveals how licence fee inspectors have so aggressively pursued women they now make up seven out of every ten prosecutions for evasion.

The findings follow a Daily Mail investigation which exposed ruthless tactics used by licence fee collectors.

We told how, under an aggressive incentive scheme, more than 300 fee collectors employed by the firm were each ordered to catch 28 evaders a week. Vulnerable people targeted included a young mother in a women’s refuge.

Managers from Capita, the firm paid £59million a year to collect fees for the BBC, told an undercover reporter he could earn bonuses of up to £15,000 a year for taking as many people as possible to court. One said: ‘We will drive you as hard as we can to get as much as we can out of you because we’re greedy.’ We also revealed how more women than men are jailed for fee evasion each year.

Following the Mail’s investigation, BBC director-general Tony Hall wrote to Capita, saying it had ‘fallen short of the standards the BBC has a right to expect’. Days later, Capita chief executive Andy Parker was forced out of his job. The firm is investigating the Mail’s findings and has suspended two managers.

The PAC today says it expects Capita to report back with findings in relation to the Mail’s probe in the coming weeks, and raises fresh concerns about how women are being ‘unfairly’ targeted.

Its report reveals how 133,000 out of 189,000 prosecutions for evasion in 2015 – approximately seven in every ten – were against women.

The committee says there is an ongoing investigation into gender disparity in licence fee prosecutions. It called for both Capita and the BBC to ‘change their approach rapidly once they understand the reasons for the problem’. The report also highlights how the broadcaster makes £16million a year by overcharging struggling families, as reported by the Mail last month.

Those who pay quarterly by direct debit are charged a £5 ‘premium’ on top of the annual £147 fee, affecting about 3million people who cannot afford to pay in one go or do not wish to do so.

Despite tactics used by enforcement officers, Capita’s approach to collections has resulted in fewer evaders being caught, the report states, resulting in the BBC losing out on between £251million and £291million in revenue.

Capita says it does not target women or vulnerable people and that its incentive scheme applies to licence sales, not convictions. It said the decline in evaders caught ‘demonstrates that our focus on encouraging people to buy a licence at an earlier stage is very successful.’

TV Licensing said an independent review had found no evidence to suggest women are targeted.