The TV Access Project

QUICK LINKS:

What is the TV Access Project?

Guidelines for Disability Inclusion in UK Television Production

What is the TV Access Project (TAP)?

TAP was formed in response to the campaign by Underlying Health Condition (UHC), which was set up by disabled creatives Genevieve Barr, Katie Player and Holly Lubran, along with screenwriter Jack Thorne, following his impassioned MacTaggart Lecture at Edinburgh TV Festival in 2021.

In Spring 2022, some of the UK’s main broadcasters and streamers met to discuss how to improve access for Deaf, Disabled and/or Neurodivergent talent across the TV industry.

Officially launched in August 2022, TAP is now an alliance of ten of the UK’s biggest broadcasters and streamers who have pledged to work together to create a substantive and permanent structural shift to ensure access provision for Disabled talent.

Its vision is to see full inclusion by 2030 – that is to say, a television industry where no Disabled talent is ever excluded because barriers have been removed and equity created.

TAP members have committed to the principles of TAP and contribute by providing senior leadership to participate in workstreams and provide funding for key work.

The current TAP members are:

Amazon Prime Video
BBC
Britbox
Channel 4
Disney
ITV
Paramount
Sky
STV
UKTV

At the heart of TAP is ambitious co-creation between disabled people and the wider industry to deliver sustainable solutions with buy-in for and from everyone.

TAP has many key partners which include Disabled-led disability interest groups and other not-for-profits as well as pan-industry organisations who contribute by providing senior/experienced talent to participate in workstreams.

The current TAP partners are:

Together all these organisations want to ensure an inclusive television production sector for disabled talent, looking at solutions that can be consistently adopted industry-wide and are pan-genre, considering both scripted and unscripted.

TAP complements the work individual broadcasters and streamers are already doing to address access for disabled talent in the TV industry and intends to be a forum for best practice.

For more information about TAP, please contact Nicole Steven in the C4 Creative Equity team – Nsteven@channel4.co.uk

TAP Toolkit

This Toolkit is a thorough resource, developed in partnership with TAP members, specifically aimed at production. The toolkit is designed to guide production in hiring, implementing reasonable adjustments, and making spaces and locations accessible, ensuring an inclusive work environment. The Toolkit is available to all indies via the Pact website - click here to access it.

Guidelines for Disability Inclusion in UK Television Production

In order to ensure the full and equal inclusion of Deaf, Disabled and/or Neurodivergent talent, both behind and in front of the camera, TAP has produced a set of simple guidelines and principles which any organisation in the industry is welcome to adopt.

These are known as The 5 As :

Anticipate
Ask
Assess
Adjust
Advocate

The guidelines are deliberately not detailed tips or technical instructions, as these can change over time and it would be impossible to provide a definitive list of every access requirement, reasonable adjustment or best practice approach in every circumstance for every individual or production.

It is for each organisation who adopts them to agree and own how they intend to implement these guidelines. However, some guidance is provided about how the standards could be put into practice.

The guidelines are available in full as a PDF.

And as an easy read version.

They are also available below in British Sign Language:

An audio version is available upon request, please contact NSteven@channel4.co.uk to gain access to it.

How TAP Works

TAP is organised through six interconnected workstreams each comprising 8-12 members. The workstreams meet regularly and also come together in a forum to discuss progress and shape future work. The workstreams focus on:

Industry best practice guidance - How to make the 5A's effective through training, monitoring and evaluating.
Access to Work - how to make it fit for purpose and to support freelancers to make best use of it.
Funding - how to create a pan-industry approach to paying for any adjustments and access costs.
Access Coordinators - how to establish and standardize the role across all genres.
Talent Retention and Progression - how to prevent the continuous exit of Disabled talent from the industry and how to nurture Disabled talent into long-lasting leadership and decision-making roles.
Production Spaces - how to support Studios, Facilities, Post Production Houses, VFX, & Outside Broadcast Units to make these spaces accessible so Disabled people can carry out their roles on an equitable basis. (See below for more information)

Production Spaces

In the course of their work, TAP have recognised that a significant barrier to progress in the area of inclusion for Deaf, Disabled and Neurodivergent talent is a lack of access provision at facilities companies and in studio spaces, despite duties under Equality Act 2010 and related to Building Regulations.

A survey conducted by Jack Thorne's Underlying Health Condition campaign in 2021 revealed an industry which is largely inaccessible, denying disabled people the right to participate; particularly concerning was the lack of accessible toilets, all-round step free access, and crucially accessible fire regulations that they discovered in studio spaces and facilities.

In the light of this, after a writing an open letter to all major studios, post-production houses, OB units and location facilities companies in August 2022, TAP has come together with these sectors to encourage the development of new industry standards for inclusivity in their workspaces as well and agree the path towards this together.

Once the plan and timeframe are laid out and the industry standards have been produced, as broadcasters and streamers, TAP members would expect those studios, post-production houses and facilities companies to adopt those industry standards and will collectively commit to working with those that do when considering new UK commissions.

A full version of the August 2022 letter is available here as a PDF.

If you would like this letter in any alternative formats, please contact Nicole Steven in the C4 Creative Equity team – Nsteven@channel4.co.uk

Access into Action: The Industry Access Survey 2022

Initiated by Amazon Prime Video and Channel 4, the Industry Access Survey was carried out by YouGov in November/December 2022 among broadcasters, streamers and production companies, asking about their access provision and approach for the inclusion of disabled talent, in order to give an overview of where the TV industry is following best practice and where there is room for improvement.

It has provided TAP with an understanding of the current lay of the land when it comes to disability access and inclusion at broadcasters, streamers and production companies, to create a benchmark from which progress can be measured.

Find out more about the Industry Access Survey here, including a report containing the key results from the survey, which was completed by 105 organisations, as well as an executive summary.

The report deliberately does not include structural, industry-wide recommendations as those are being enacted via the multiple work streams of the TV Access Project. However, it concludes with a three-step action plan that individual organisations can follow in response to the findings, to effect relatively speedy change.

TAP: LIVE 2023

On the 12th June, TAP hosted a live event to celebrate the progress made by the project so far. If you missed out, a recording of the full event is below.

Contact for more information:

Nicole Steven - Creative Diversity & Disability Project Manager

Email: Nsteven@channel4.co.uk

The TV Access Project