Well, fancy that. Here we are in the midst of a diabolical ideological attack on the Social Security system and instead of the serious journalism on this subject we are crying out for, I see that prime time viewing on BBC One this Wednesday is a fascinating new series called 'Britain on the Fiddle' about (surprise, surprise) benefit cheats.
I seriously question the purpose of yet another programme looking at benefits from the fraud perspective, especially from what is supposed to be a public service broadcaster. I'm sure these programmes bring in the ratings; how smug we should feel when we see those shameless scroungers caught on camera and banged to rights! But where is the 'balance'? Where are the journalists asking the awkward questions about the number of people falsely accused of benefit fraud by nasty neighbours jealous of the Motorbility car? Where is the documentary looking at how cuts to legal aid are preventing claimants from receiving specialist advice and support at appeals? Who's investigating the benefit fraud cases going to court on the basis of inflated overpayment figures, because the DWP aren't taking account of ongoing entitlement?
Recent surveys have revealed that the general public have alarming misconceptions about the level of benefit fraud, generally believing 24% of payments go on dishonest claims, when the true figure is about 0.7%. But is it surprising that people think a quarter of benefits are claimed fraudulently, when it seems 90% of programming and reporting on Social Security focuses on benefit fraud!
The problem isn't just the ubiquitous nature of these negative stories about claimants, its the prominence they get. To be fair to the BBC, they have made a number of interesting documentaries looking at the origins of the 'Credit Crunch' and the misdemeanours of the bankers, but these are typically tucked away on BBC Two. The 'On the Fiddle' programmes get a BBC One slot, often hot on the heels of a popular soap and ahead of the main evening news.
And whereas bankers and politicians under scrutiny get an office-based interview with a journalist in which to put their side of the story, or allow their spin-doctors or lawyers to do the talking, the claimants are viewed entirely through the eyes and shaky films of the DWP investigators, have absolutely no control over the programme content, no intermediary to spin their story and no right of reply. I may be wrong - unlike Iain Duncan Smith, I don't regard my personal feelings about something as irrefutable evidence of its unquestionable truth - but it seems to me that the public hostility towards claimants and 'welfare' can be traced back to the advent of these nasty, snide excuses for documentaries.
Now you might think there's an obvious way to redress this - some documentaries filmed in advice centres, following people as they struggle through their daily lives, claims and appeals, and indeed the nauseatingly-named 'Saints and Scroungers' does include a heart-warming tale or two of bravery against the odds. But that's done cynically, to put the fraudsters on show into sharper relief. If the programme makers really wanted to help 'deserving' claimants, the show would just look at the 'Saints'.
But where do you find your 'Saints' when claimants now live in a climate of fear and are afraid to tell even their friends and neighbours that they are 'on benefits'? The local media would often ask for a 'human interest' angle on a social security story, but even before we reached the current level of hysteria, it was almost impossible to persuade people to come forward no matter how dreadful the treatment they had received. And as advisers, we couldn't tell their story without their consent. I've ended up addressing the issues and injustices I saw through writing fiction, but the majority of benefit claimants' voices go unheard, especially those accused of being a 'cheat'.
Now some fool is bound to be thinking that this diatribe means I think benefit fraud is somehow 'OK'. It doesn't, and I don't. But it's time for the media to stop obsessing about benefit fraud; IDS will still accuse the BBC of anti-Government bias, no matter how many of these programmes you commission, so stop it now!
Instead, let's talk about the benefits that people are entitled to that go unclaimed - a sum estimated at up to £16 billion annually, over ten times the £1.2 billion attributed to benefit fraud. Let's have some old fashioned 'public information films' aimed at telling people what they are entitled to, and some soap opera storylines where older characters claim their Pension Credit so can turn the heating back on, where sick and disabled characters get reassessed for ESA, lose their money but appeal and win (and we're all cheering them on) and where working characters grumble about how complicated their Tax Credits are. Because when benefits stop being taboo in popular culture, real claimants who aren't desperate exhibitionists lured onto reality TV by the siren hope of becoming a celebrity will be willing to come forward and tell their stories.
