Â鶹Éç

The new licences reflect the outcome of the Trust's public consultation last year, relevant changes to services arising from the six year Delivering Creative Future strategy (except for changes which require further regulatory approval), and the Purpose Remits finalised in December last year. The new licences also reflect the Trust's expectations of the Â鶹Éç, informed by a full year of governing the Corporation.

The licences spell out the remits and key characteristics for each service – describing what licence fee payers expect to receive in return for their licence fee – the scope of a service, its baseline budget, essential activity and how the Trust will assess performance. Major changes to Â鶹Éç services are not possible without the Trust's approval and where these are significant the public will be consulted as part of a public value test.

As part of the new governance regime, the Trust must carry out a full-scale review of each Â鶹Éç service at least once every five years and this process will include consulting audiences. The programme of reviews is already underway, with bbc.co.uk about to finish, and the review of services and content for children about to start. Terms of reference for the latter are also published today.

Sir Michael Lyons, Â鶹Éç Trust Chairman said:

"Everyone quite rightly wants the Â鶹Éç to provide the highest quality programmes and services in return for their licence fee. The Trust has designed a service licence framework which makes these expectations clear. Through our work we will keep in touch with audiences about how the Â鶹Éç is performing, especially during the detailed reviews we are doing now for bbc.co.uk and are about to start for children's."

In a document explaining the changes made to the licences, the Trust says its objective has been to design a system which allows it to be focused in its scrutiny, and consistent in its approach to the use of commitments and conditions. Specific conditions have been concentrated only on the genres that are core to Â鶹Éç public purposes and in danger of being under-supplied by the commercial broadcasters. For example, on television this includes arts & music, religion and children's programming. The Trust has also streamlined its approach to setting the level of conditions – which is the baseline minimum that a service must deliver. This change has meant an increase in some which were previously very low, and a reduction to others which were set at the actual level of delivery and therefore at risk of becoming a quota target. Other changes have been made to ensure the new licences fully reflect the Â鶹Éç's concern to reach all audiences and can be readily understood.

Ends

Notes to editors

1. A full explanation of the changes made, access to all the licences, contributions to the consultation and a summary of the research is available.
2. The Trust has not reissued the bbc.co.uk licence as its review is ongoing. Information about the Trust's review of bbc.co.uk is available at: bbc.co.uk service licence.