The government is set to drop a major reform of rules governing children appearing on TV that has been on the cards for more than two years, Broadcast has learned.
Prompted by concerns around Channel 4 series Boys and Girls Alone and the appearance of 10-year-old Hollie Steel sobbing on Britain’s Got Talent, the previous Labour government launched a review of the use of children on TV in June 2009, with the aim of updating the 1963 Children and Young Persons Act and 1968 Children’s Entertainment Regulations.
Initially, the government pledged to tighten the rules. However, the focus shifted towards addressing inconsistent legislation designed for a bygone era. Reform was then championed under the coalition government by new children’s minister Tim Loughton.
New primary legislation, based on a report published last year, was expected to be pushed through under the coalition government. However, senior sources have indicated that it is unlikely to be passed during this term - and its future is now uncertain.
The report, written by industry consultant Sarah Thane, recommended a “more streamlined, proportionate and risk-based licensing” approach, starting with “a presumption in favour of licensing child performance”.
With the onus on producers to demonstrate due care, something they are already required to do under the existing Ofcom code, there would be “very few occasions when a local authority would refuse a licence based on the nature of the production”, Thane said.
She stressed the importance of updating the “anachronistic” legislation. “I would urge that the impetus around this issue be maintained,” she wrote.
However, indications are that this has now dropped down the government’s agenda, leaving the industry with rules from another era that one insider described as “an utter mess”.
A second claimed the current system amounted to a postcode lottery in which local authorities could “exercise prejudices about who deserved licences”.
They added: “Licences are given out on a case-by-case basis, which is unsatisfactory - people can make it work, but it’s not what we should be doing. If things become too difficult, the industry will just stop using children in programming.”
The Department for Education spokesman said: “We want children to have the opportunity to perform and we are continuing to develop, along with partners, our proposals for changing the safeguarding legislation. We will issue detailed options for consultation in due course.”
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