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The BBC has been holding a consultation about how – or whether – it should maintain the current provision of free TV licences for the over-75s. It offers a number of different options, with different costings, and Enders Analysis has kindly agreed to allow openDemocracy to publish its submission to the BBC: in effect, an impassioned plea for the government to “do the right thing”, and take back responsibility for an important piece of social provision, rather than undermine the BBC’s public service offerings.
This bomb started ticking four years ago when the BBC and the newly-elected Tory government came face to face over the broadcaster’s future funding. George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer, was determined to deliver what he had failed to achieve five years earlier, when the BBC board and management refused – to the point of threatening resignation – to take on the cost of providing free TV licences for any household containing someone over the age of 75.
