An examination of the public discourse on benefit claimants in

the media

Richard BaillieSeptember 2010

Background

Legislation

Social Security Administration Act 1992

Social Security Fraud Act 2001Welfare Reform Act 2007Welfare Reform Act 2009

Natural Justice?

Is it just to punish those who have already been punished through their exclusion from society? (Klein, 1990)

• £148 billion paid by DWP• £1 billion lost to fraud• £1.1 billion lost to customer error• £1.1 billion lost to official error• £1.3 billion to underpayments of

benefit• Source NAO report on the DWP resource accounts for 2009/2010 (2010)

Shaping public opinion

• Media commentary on social security fraud tends to indicate that the public may collude in punishment of Social Security Fraud (Chunn and Gavigan, 2004)

The ideological turn

• From– Welfare fraud

• To– Welfare as fraud

• ‘There must be something terribly wrong with a community which tolerates tax evasion…and other types of frauds …but which becomes enraged by the actions of people who act, so often out of need to fulfil basic requirements of living’ (Thacker, 1998)

Selected Themes

• The media’s role in equating welfare with welfare fraud

• How the media send a moral message (Hall, 1980)

• The relationship between the state and the media

Conflation of fraud

Intensified state regulation

Intensified surveillance

• CAUGHT ON CAMERA: THE BENEFITS CHEAT WHO CLAIMED SHE COULDN'T WALK PUTTING OUT THE BINS

• Daily Mail, 30th April 2010

• 'SINGLE' MOTHER'S £6,500 BENEFITS CON EXPOSED AFTER SHE ANNOUNCED MARRIAGE ON FACEBOOK AND FRIENDS REUNITED

•

• Daily Mail, 26th May 2009

• Man on disability benefits secretly filmed playing golf

• Daily Telegraph, 15/06/09

The legislation of consent

• Self Regulation

• Compulsion

The manufacture of consent

Diffusion of reality

Agenda setting

Enforcing powerful prejudices

Public opinion/media content/policy initiatives.

What fuels the debate?

• State policy

• Fiscal constraint

• Concern about the ‘other’

Superstructure

• Reproduced through language

– ‘scrounger’ ‘scam’ ‘cheat’ ‘fraud’

• Reinforced by selection

– 43 stories on benefit fraud, 1 on tax evasion

What Welfare Rights Advisers do

• Create an event– Of our choosing– In the mind of the decision maker– In order to persuade

What the media does

• Report on events– Of their choice– To be consumed by an audience– In order persuade/ to influence

The sample

• 12 months leading up to 2010 General Election

• National newspapers

• Online search engines

Results

• Where?– Parliament– Courts– Council Estates– Large rental properties in London

• Who?– Politicians– Judges– DWP– Pressure groups– Single mums– The sick– The disabled

Moral Regulation

• Cross media 16-20% of stories were about single mums.

• RETURN CASH BY THE TIME YOU'RE 120: JOBLESS MOTHER GETS 81YRS TO REPAY £60,000 BENEFIT FRAUD

• Daily Mail, 23/05/2009

The case of Fiona MacKeown

– Headlines focus on attention grabbing figures – GOA MURDER GIRL'S MOTHER IS CHARGED O

VER £50K BENEFITS FRAUD– Daily Mail, 19/11/2009– – THE MOTHER OF MURDERED SCARLETT

KEELING APPEARED IN COURT CHARGED WITH A £50,000 BENEFIT FRAUD

– Daily Express, Friday December 4,2009

The case of Amanda Hyett

• SHANNON MATTHEWS 'AUNT' JAILED FOR BENEFIT FRAUD

• Amanda Hyett sentenced to a year for making false benefits claims worth almost £36,000

• • The Guardian, 5 November 2009

• SHANNON AUNT IN BENEFITS RAP

• Wednesday, July 29, 2009,The Sun

Welfare as Fraud

• JUST ONE IN SIX INCAPACITY BENEFIT CLAIMANTS ‘IS GENUINE’ AS TOUGH NEW TEST REVEALS TWO MILLION COULD BE CHEATING

• Daily Mail, 20/10/2009

• THIS MAN FRAUDULENTLY CLAIMS £159 A WEEK IN BENEFITS. INVESTIGATORS FOLLOW HIM AS HE STROLLS ROUND TOWN AND GOES IN THE BOOKIES. IT IS SICKENING.

• The Sun, 04/07/2009

Political interventions

• General Election 2010: Tories say benefit cheats should lose state support for 3 years

• Daily Telegraph, 09/04/2010

• MP’s fury after mistakes help benefits overpayments to double to £800 million

• Daily Telegraph, 09/02/2010

….and finally

• Benefit claimant’s demands for cash going unchallenged by Government

• Daily Telegraph, 23/05/2009