As part of its ongoing evolution of Duty of Care best practice, ITV has announced new measures.
The broadcaster notes it will strengthen its support for producers working on ITV network programmes.
Kevin Lygo, ITV’s Managing Director of Media and Entertainment:
“Whether it’s Long Lost Family or Love Island, ITV commissions a wide range of programming from extremely experienced producers with best in class duty of care practices.
“For big productions that require extra support, as well as newer and smaller indies, we have decided as part of the continued evolution of our duty of care practices that we will extend our offer as a broadcaster to provide even more guidance and help in this extremely important area, including adding a new role in our division to support indies and offering access to a training programme and support templates, which we will begin to make available.”
ITV’s commissioning agreements require producers to comply with all codes, guidance and laws, including ITV’s guidance to producers on protecting programme participants, which explains in detail what ITV considers to be best practice from the selection of participants before filming, in supporting them during filming, and in continued support up to and after the broadcast of the programme.
To further aid producers in deciding the appropriate level of support for programme participants on their shows, ITV is today setting out a number of new announcements. ITV’s Media and Entertainment division (M&E) plan to create a new ‘Production Advisor for Duty of Care’ role, modelled on a role in ITV Studios’ Duty of Care team, which has been in place since 2019.
The new role, which will be advertised shortly, will work with commissioners and producers on ITV programmes, to advise and support on delivering appropriate participant welfare plans for productions.
The Production Advisor for Duty of Care will be M&E’s initial point of contact for programme making duty of care requirements, whilst drawing full support from internal ITV resources. They will work closely with ITV Compliance, ITV Risk, Health and Safety teams and ITV Business Affairs, as well as the commissioning team and the independent production community.
ITV also plans to extend a Duty of Care Training programme, which has been created by the ITV Studios Duty of Care Team and already rolled out across the group, to all third party producers working on ITV Network commissions who would like to access it, as well as a range of template support materials. ITV plans to create an online training module which will be rolled out to independent producers.
Kevin Lygo, ITV’s Managing Director of Media and Entertainment:
“It’s in all our interests to continue to make great shows that allow people to follow their ambitions by taking part, fully informed and with the proportionate support required. This is an area that ITV takes very seriously, as demonstrated by the way we have evolved our approach over the past few years, bringing in industry leading guidance, setting up new governance structures and working with a range of expert advisers. It is an area we know our production partners take very seriously too.”
