Talking News and Transcription Services
Please click on the green play button below to listen to the audio version of the Talking News and Transcription Services section of the Statutory Accounts.
KAB has been providing free Talking Newspapers (TN), magazines and information since the 1960s. Thirteen local editions are recorded each week by teams of volunteers around the region. Many of our listeners are frail housebound older people, and TN provides a way for them to keep abreast of news from their area that has been selected to be of particular interest to them. We also use TN to let people know about what’s new in the field of visual impairment and to provide information on changes in benefits and concession which is all combined into a bi-monthly audio magazine called ‘Magnify’.
During the year the process of transferring the Talking News service from Cassette to Digital formats was successfully completed. It has been a huge piece of work and we are enormously grateful to our TN staff and volunteer team whose perseverance has meant that the transfer has been an enormous success with service users, bringing a very beneficial improvement in production quality. A key aim for TN in 2010/11 was the introduction of a quality review process to continue to improve the quality of the recordings and to provide the team of volunteer readers with more feedback about the editorial content and production quality of their recordings - something they have welcomed. So far this year we have carried out semi-structured telephone interviews with around 150 listeners, and have identified key areas for development and are now in a position to respond with practical improvements.
The cost of the service has fallen following a staff restructure in the early part of the year. Marten Rayner, our Digital Production Co-ordinator took on more responsibility for the service so less senior management time was required, leading to a fall in support costs. Equipment costs have also reduced, as in 2009/10, large quantities of Boomboxes were purchased for resale to service users who were receiving the new digital format on USB memory sticks; these costs have been much lower in 2010/11 following the completion of the digital transfer.
TN is available free on demand to anyone with any degree of sight impairment. It continues to be financed by fundraising activities and we rely on the generosity of our supporters and donors to provide the c£35,000 it costs to run the service annually. We would also like to thank the many TN volunteers, without whose commitment and energy the service could not function.
KAB also has a transcription service which takes inaccessible written documents and produces accessible versions in audio, Braille or large print. The Transcription Service is used both by KAB, to benefit visually impaired service users, trustees, staff and volunteers, and it is also purchased by outside organisations to meet the needs of their sight impaired customers.
key aim for 2010/11 was to continue to market this service more widely to external organisations and we are extremely pleased that this has resulted in an increase in income of more than 100%, to £8,400 in 2010/11. The increase is the result of several factors including a price restructure during 2010/11, an increase in requests for local authorities to produce letters and information in accessible formats, and new agreements for services. Costs have also increased as a result of more staff time being spent on both the increased volume of transcription work and improving its quality, as well as some additional support costs.
Our strategy for the next 18 months is to develop the Transcription Service to meet the needs of our sight impaired clients and staff, and to continue to expand the service offered to external organisations. The following changes are underway and will continue to be monitored and reviewed in 2010/11: staffing levels will be kept under review to ensure that there are appropriate staff to meet the demand for the service and to ensure that high quality standards are maintained, fee levels will be checked periodically against those of competitors, and efforts will be made to further directly market the service to outside organisations including local authorities, hospitals and GPs and finally the service will aim to continue to improve the accessible information available to sight impaired KAB staff. We will also undertake a small strategic review in September 2011, to ensure that the expansion of the Transcription Service is not adversely impacting on our delivery of Talking News to frail vulnerable clients.