TV Switchover Help Scheme Bulletin
Spring 2009
News from the Switchover Help Scheme
Welcome to the first Bulletin from the Switchover Help Scheme, which offers practical help at switchover to older and disabled. We wanted to update those of you that have worked with us so far and to explain our work to those of you that know a bit less about the Switchover Help Scheme.
Our aim, the target that has been set for us, is that no eligible person should be left without TV at switchover. It’s an impossible target, but it’s one we have to aspire to. We have no other purpose than to make sure that every eligible person is supported through digital switchover, so that they keep access to the TV that for many plays an important part in their lives. We won’t succeed in that aim without the expertise, input and support of the kind of organisations that you represent.
Our Challenge
Our focus last year was on planning and designing with some of your help, a Help Scheme dedicated to reaching all eligible people and tailored for their diverse needs. Since switchover in the Scottish Borders last November our attention is firmly moving to delivery.
By Government estimates, there are around seven million people eligible for the Switchover Help Scheme in the UK, Isle of Man and Channel Islands. By the time of our stakeholder event last November we had offered our help to around 25,000 eligible people – to date this has risen to around 400,000 people in the Border and West Country ITV regions.
Roll-out will continue in both these regions during the rest of this year but we will also launch the Help Scheme to at least a further 500,000 people in the ITV Wales region and more than one million people in the Granada ITV region, our largest region to date.
With such a dramatic increase in scale we know that the path ahead may not always be smooth but we strive to always challenge our thinking and apply lessons learned from each region.
Tailoring our service
One of our aspirations is to keep talking to eligible people and their representative groups, to make sure that we have the right design and delivery. In setting up the Help Scheme, we researched the barriers to take-up of such a service and how to remove them through our service levels. The result was our Code of Service Standards - it promises eligible people that we have thought about their particular needs and tailored our service to them.
Last year’s research project focused on how eligible people respond to the Help Scheme. The promise of the Help Scheme really connected with target audiences, the Code was well received and went beyond what people expect from service providers. But the most vulnerable people’s trust and comfort hit a barrier when they were shown the information packs containing a variety of different options. The research told us eligible people expect the standard offer (which is £40 or free) to be the simplest offer.
After reviewing our research, the Government changed the Switchover Help Scheme Agreement to specify that the standard offer should not include time limited trials. We also changed the design of the information pack sent to all eligible people, with the standard offer being highlighted within the letter and other options included in a separate booklet.
Would you like to help?
The Help Scheme values your continued input as critical friends and as champions of older and disabled people. It would help enormously if we could raise awareness of the Help Scheme directly with your own client group. Perhaps you could let us know the best methods of reaching them? We would also like to potentially seek your own input/involvement – please do let us know if you’d be happy to be approached going forward.
I hope to be in contact later in the year with more news about the Switchover Help Scheme but in the meantime, do please let Corinna McShane know directly if you would like to become more involved with our work.
Best wishes,
Peter White
CHIEF EXECUTIVE
Digital Switchover Help Scheme
The Switchover Help Scheme is run by the BBC, under an agreement with the Government to help older and disabled people make the change to digital TV. To find out more please visit www.helpscheme.co.uk. The Help Scheme offers each eligible person conversion of one TV set in the run up to switchover in their area. For £40 (or free for those on income related benefits), eligible people will get easy-to-use equipment, installation, a demonstration of how it works and 12 months aftercare. People are eligible to get help from the Help Scheme if they are aged 75 years or over; registered blind or partially sighted; get (or could get) attendance or constant attendance allowance, mobility supplement, or disability living allowance or have lived in a care home for six months or more.