BBC Outsourcing TV Licence to India

[Teddy Bear]

The following news hits the TV license payer in many ways.

1. By stopping the TV license contract from the Post Office, it increases the chances of even more local P.O.s being closed, which will add to the inconvenience for users.

2. Loss of jobs by TV license payers previously employed at call centers here as a direct result of outsourcing. (I have to admit a certain feeling of irony to this - after all weren't they helping the BBC and Capita to fleece the rest of the public?)

3. The very possibility that by having your details at these Indian call centers that your likely to be the victim of a scam.

4. Paying your license fee supports this insidious media organisation that is the BBC, as well as their henchman Capita.

So what's in it for you? For information and empowerment on how to stop paying your TV license visit The Anti TVL site

BBC Outsourcing TV Licence to India

Following hot on the heels of the BBC’s controversial decision to remove the TV licensing contract from the Post Office network, the TV Licence administration work is now set to be outsourced to India from its current base in Bristol. The licence collection business is managed by Capita, who have made the decision to outsource, with support from the BBC.



In excess of 15 million people pay their TV licence via direct debit. Recently, ITV and Channel 4 exposed the lack of security and the protection of personal and bank details held in India.



Numerous investigations have shown that bank details of British People are being sold to criminal gangs and with continuous security breaches in Indian call centres, identity fraud is rife. As a result many larger British companies have reversed the decision to manage bank details in India and have brought work back to Britain.



The Communication Workers Union is today launching a campaign advising the public to cease paying for their TV licence by Direct Debit.



CWU General Secretary Billy Hayes says “This is the outsourcing of another British institution. The outsourcing of the TV Licence administration will create unnecessary security fears for the British public and put hundreds of people in Bristol out of work”.



The outsourcing to India will result in the loss of hundreds of workers from the current base in Bristol. Workers there are set to take strike action in opposition to the move.

(Hat-Tip - Fr@ser)

[Teddy Bear]

And if that wasn't enough:

BBC accused of off-shoring deception
BECTU has accused the BBC of misleading Parliament over details of its plan to move finance jobs to India.

The union has publicised a major discrepancy between information given to staff about the deal, and submissions made by top Corporation executives to the Public Accounts Committee.


“Parliament appears to have been mislead over whether the XANSA bid was the lowest”
At a hearing on November 29th in the House of Commons the BBC claimed that a bid by Xansa, the company which was awarded a contract involving hundreds of jobs going to India, was the cheapest that had been received.

This contradicted a meeting only a day earlier, where the BBC had told BECTU officials that Xansa's bid was not the cheapest.

MPs also heard that all bidders for the BBC's finance contract, currently in the hands of Media Accounting Services (Medas), had included an element of offshore work in their proposals.

However, at the meeting with union representatives, the BBC said that the bid from Medas itself did not include any element of off-shoring, although some jobs would have been moved from London to Swansea if the company had won renewal of its contract.

BECTU Official Luke Crawley said: "The BBC is contradicting itself in its stories about the cost of off-shoring jobs. If what it says to the staff and BECTU is true then the BBC is spending more public money to send jobs overseas than it would cost to keep those jobs in the UK. This also raises a question about why the public purse should fund the resulting unemployment of this exercise.

"Parliament appears to have been mislead over whether the XANSA bid was the lowest bid for the outsourced work", he continued. "BECTU is calling on the BBC to own up and tell the truth, either it has lied to Parliament or it has lied to the staff and Unions about the contract."

The BBC's responded by saying that the winning bid from Xansa included a number of one-off costs that made "one of the other bidders marginally cheaper than the Xansa bid". BECTU has taken this as confirmation that, over the life of the 10-year contract, another bidder, thought to be Medas, would have been cheaper than Xansa.

(Hat-Tip - Giddy Boy)