Coming soon: the great universal credit deception

A leaked memo shows that the Department for Work and Pensions is about to embark on a PR campaign to defend its worst ever policy.

How to sell the unsellable? How to pretend utter chaos is a plan coming together? How to persuade the public, who just refuse to buy it, to at least keep on paying for it? I believe I have found the answer.

It comes in the form of an internal memo from the Department for Work and Pensions that somehow floated past my desk. Published on the staff intranet just a few days ago, on 2 May, it is signed by three of the department’s most senior officials, including the DWP’s director of communications and Neil Couling, its head of universal credit. And it is that toxically controversial benefit which is its subject.

Addressed to the department’s employees, the letter sympathises: “We share your justified frustration when our hard work – in particular our work on Universal Credit – is portrayed incorrectly and/or negatively in the media.” The circular condemns this “negativity and scaremongering”, and blames it for putting people off even applying for the benefit.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/14/universal-credit-department-work-pensions-pr

Liverpool Job Centre staff 'refuse' to take part in Universal Credit publicity BBC programme
DWP planning documentary series and advertising campaign to 'tackle misconceptions and improve the reputation of UC'
https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/liverpool-job-centre-staff-refuse-16283250

MPs demand details of DWP's universal credit advertorials.

Amber Rudd challenged on cost of campaign and accuracy of its claims about new benefit.

A cross-party group of MPs have written to Amber Rudd, the work and pensions secretary, demanding more details of a reported £250,000 “unbranded” PR campaign to promote universal credit.

A leaked internal document revealed by the Guardian this week says the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has taken out newspaper advertorials purporting to “myth-bust common inaccuracies” about universal credit in a “UC-uncovered investigation.”

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/may/16/mps-demand-details-of-dwps-universal-credit-advertorials

Cruel and chaotic? No, in the DWP’s fantasy land, universal credit is a huge success.


In a visit to a jobcentre, staff told me all was fine. Off the record, others talk of brutal cuts causing starvation and despair.

Come with me on an eerie visit, where we step through the looking glass into an alternative universe where everything is as good as can be. You will like it here. Everyone smiles: they only want to help their clients fulfil themselves, nothing bad ever happens here. They love their work. This little utopia is the Middlesbrough jobcentre. As everywhere, they are rolling out universal credit to new claimants or existing “clients” with any change of circumstance. Here they prompt unemployed or underemployed people into work or more work, telling them how many jobs to apply for, what appointments and courses to take, and (whisper it) with what penalties if they fail (“But that’s very, very rare”).

Full article:  
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/17/universal-credit-dwp-jobcentre-visit

See also the "interesting" comments below the article. Here is one response to some of them:

"Christ.....the fucking Tory apologists for Universal Cruelty crawling from the swamp today."

Universal credit spin is at odds with reality
Obvious failures in the government’s welfare policy can’t be glossed over with an ad campaign
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/17/universal-credit-spin-is-at-odds-with-reality