17 May 2002
However, the proportion of revenue lost through evasion has fallen from 9.9% in 1991 to 5.2% in 2001, inspectors from the National Audit Office said. This still falls short of the corporation's target rate of 3.5%, which it hopes to achieve by the time its Royal Charter ends in 2006.
The report shows that the overwhelming majority of visits to people's homes made by enquiry officers produced no result. Inspectors said 57% of visits were to properties where the occupant was out or refused to answer the door. A further 20% were made to vacant properties or those under construction, while 2% were to properties that did not exist.
Just 21% of visits resulted in contact with the occupant, and in a tenth of these cases it turned out that they already had a valid licence, making the visits unnecessary.
The report praised the BBC's efforts in introducing a range of payment methods to encourage as many people as possible to buy licences. It also highlighted research being conducted into the types of people who evade their licence fee and their reasons for doing so.
NAO comptroller and auditor general Sir John Bourn said the BBC was doing a great deal to detect and deter evaders.
He added: 'Television licence fee evasion affects all licence payers. Even on conservative estimates, the cost represents approximately £141m a year, or £6 for each licence payer.'
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