Local authorities

Anyone who is registered blind or partially sighted is eligible for assistance from the Switchover Help Scheme.

Blind & Partially sighted registers

The Help Scheme will contact local authorities asking for information from their blind and partially sighted registers around eleven months before the start of digital switchover in each ITV region.

Please help us by making sure that these registers are up to date to avoid eligible people losing out on assistance from the Help Scheme.

Raising resident awareness

Local authorities can help raise awareness of the Help Scheme amongst older and disabled residents by providing information about the Help Scheme in council newsletters and websites. We would be delighted to supply Help Scheme articles and information for publication. Please contact us if you can help.

Next steps

The Help Scheme will get in touch with every Local Authority directly to see how we can work together in other ways to help older and disabled residents. Don’t worry if you haven’t heard from us yet about this, as we make contact seven months before switchover (click here to see when your region switches).

Please reassure eligible residents that they don’t need to worry as we will write to them directly. Remember to mention that they need to respond to receive our help.

Help us spread the word - we run local community campaigns encouraging people to tell relatives, friends and neighbours about the help they can receive. You can help by displaying our posters and bookmarks in council buildings. You can download or order posters and bookmarks from our website. Click here to go to our downloads page.