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Latest press reports on UC
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Information and advice resources - Age UK
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Good for them.
Liverpool job centre staff have reportedly refused to take part in a TV show promoting the reputation of Universal Credit.
Liverpool Job Centre staff ‘refuse’ to take part in Universal Credit publicity BBC programme
From the Guardian:
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 ...
The chair of the work and pensions select committee, Frank Field, has written to Rudd asking to see internal DWP documents in full. He has asked for details of the cost of the campaign, whether Rudd personally approved the plans, and what guarantees the department can give as to the accuracy of the advertorial.
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Mental health & welfare rights service - Wolverhampton City Council
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The Mirror is covering Leigh Day’s latest action. Nice to see a contributor here getting his 15 minutes!
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/universal-credit-disabled-claimants-planning-16157025
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.
Cruel and chaotic? No, in the DWP’s fantasy land, universal credit is a huge success
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Paul_Treloar_AgeUK - 16 May 2019 12:08 PMGood for them.
Liverpool job centre staff have reportedly refused to take part in a TV show promoting the reputation of Universal Credit.
Liverpool Job Centre staff ‘refuse’ to take part in Universal Credit publicity BBC programme
A film crew from BBC2 approached our advice centre approx. 2 months ago and asked if we wanted to take part in a fly on the wall documentary which would take an “objective, impartial and realistic” approach to Universal Credit. After we told them UC was inadequate, how un-fit for purpose the system has been, how we were wary to let a camera crew loose with our vulnerable clients, and how much we distrusted the BBC, they never returned.
Looks like we dodged a bullet.
The Metro campaign has launched:
https://twitter.com/DWP/status/1131088619219968001
https://creative.dailymail.co.uk/universalcredit/uc-uncovered/index.html
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Welfare rights service - Derbyshire County Council
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Welfare rights service - Derbyshire County Council
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They are still going on about UC getting people in to work ‘faster than they did on the old system’.
Are they still using the same discredited stats from years back, I wonder?
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Welfare rights service - Northumberland County Council
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Is this part of the campaign? Or just the Chron weighing with some free positive spin?
https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/heres-what-happens-dwp-deems-16305930
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Welfare rights adviser - Sefton Council, Liverpool
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“Our aim is everyone who you meet in a Jobcentre is upskilled to a level where they are confident dealing with anyone who walks through our door with any health condition.”
“Upskilled”! Please. The jargon of the inarticulate.
And I don’t even know where to start with the following.
“We can make the right onward referral, easements they can make a claimant commitment that fits their journey individually”.
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Welfare rights adviser - Social Inclusion Unit, Swansea
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what is a ‘pie and socialising kind of thing’?
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Welfare rights adviser - Sefton Council, Liverpool
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Vonny - 22 May 2019 11:49 AMwhat is a ‘pie and socialising kind of thing’?
A laugh and a joke with a couple of people in a chippy
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Welfare rights adviser - Social Inclusion Unit, Swansea
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does the flexible support fund chip in for the mushy peas?
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Welfare rights service - Derbyshire County Council
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Another ‘Reach’ news source, I note.
Babble and buzzwords. Hard to say if it is poorly written or if the journalist is having a laugh by quoting the people verbatim as they struggle for the correct thing to say.
No mention of a right of appeal, I note…....
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Welfare rights service - Derbyshire County Council
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This from the politician who has just splurged a quarter of a million on patronising, inaccurate propagand-ads
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Welfare rights service - Northumberland County Council
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nevip - 22 May 2019 11:33 AM“Our aim is everyone who you meet in a Jobcentre is upskilled to a level where they are confident dealing with anyone who walks through our door with any health condition.”
“Upskilled”! Please. The jargon of the inarticulate.
And I don’t even know where to start with the following.
“We can make the right onward referral, easements they can make a claimant commitment that fits their journey individually”.
It’s almost like they don’t expect to be taken seriously..
NUJ concerned by misleading DWP newspaper ads:
NUJ delegates at the TUC Disabled Workers’ Conference in Bournemouth have condemned the Department of Work and Pensions for running a misleading PR campaign about Universal Credit. The NUJ also sent a message of solidarity and support to members of the Public and Commercial Services Union.
https://www.nuj.org.uk/news/misleading-dwp-newspaper-ads/
DWP’s “Universal Credit Uncovered” newspaper advert backfires:
Flicking through the Metro this morning, I was ashamed to discover that I am a lying fake news monger who has written “a lot” about Universal Credit, and apparently “not all of it correct”.
Well, according to the Department for Work & Pensions, that is ...
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https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/dwp-universal-credit-advert-metro_uk_5ce5146be4b0547bd12f591d
I have also looked through the Twitter responses to the DWP. One has had me hysterical with laughter. When you find it, you will know which one. I can’t possibly post it.
[Edited to shorten link]
[ Edited: 23 May 2019 at 10:13 am by shawn mach ]Neil Couling on Twitter:
Our partners, as well as colleagues working for DWP are worried that scaremongering and misrepresentation of actual reality of #UniversalCredit is causing claimants to delay making claims. So I applaud my colleagues for tackling this issue in innovative new ways #MythBusting
https://twitter.com/NeilCouling/status/1131459670730846210
Frank Field:
Rather than wasting huge chunks of desperately needed resources on 10 weeks of advertorial, why won’t the Government just take a look at the terrible reality of the facts we and so many others are showing them, for free, and instead spend that money on making some of its claims about UC helping people come true?
From Leigh Day:
As the DWP launches a PR campaign to supposedly ‘bust the myths’ around Universal Credit, Legal Officer Carolin Ott highlights the many reasons why it will take more than a few advertorials to fix the utterly broken system .....
https://www.leighday.co.uk/Blog/May-2019/Its-going-to-take-more-than-a-PR-campaign-to-fix
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Welfare rights service - Derbyshire County Council
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Walsall and Wolverhampton UC Service Centres - Further Strike - PCS members in the Universal Credit Service Centres in Walsall and Wolverhampton to take further two days strike action on Tuesday 28 and Wednesday 29 May, in their campaign for more staff and improved working conditions.
#MYTH - the reality is that our staff are so thrilled with the splendiferousness of the UC system that they are taking to the streets to celebrate and spread the word. We simply cannot contain their sheer spontaneous joy. All is well, business as usual, going forward, test and learn, how dare you scaremonger, we will set the record straight
Z2K have made a formal complaint to the ASA
We believe these adverts to be dangerous in their disingenuousness and could lead to people who are not better off on Universal Credit than they were on their old legacy benefits, being seriously harmed and at risk of living with not enough income for basic provisions such as food.
Not to appear stupid…but what exactly is an “advertorial”?
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Citizens Advice Bridport & District
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MaggieB - 29 May 2019 08:10 PMNot to appear stupid…but what exactly is an “advertorial”?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertorial
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For good measure, I too have made a formal complaint, this time to the Cabinet Secretary about breaches of the Civil Service Code.
File Attachments
- UC_publicity_complaint_to_cabinet_sec_May_19.docx (File Size: 16KB - Downloads: 2004)
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Welfare rights service - Derbyshire County Council
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Strikes may spread: DWP remains in total denial.
It is also depressing that in just a few weeks we will very likely have yet another new Sec of State for DWP, yet more discontinuity and, likely again, more vainglorious boasting.
Daphne - 29 May 2019 03:46 PMZ2K have made a formal complaint to the ASA ....
Alok Sharma said in the Commons yesterday:
A number of colleagues, including the shadow Minister, raised the issue of the Metro campaign. The whole point of the “Universal Credit Uncovered” campaign is to tackle common myths about universal credit. The Department has consulted the Advertising Standards Authority, and our adverts reflect its advice.