by Sunny Hundal

The BBC Trust has ruled that the programme ‘The Future of the Welfare State’, broadcast in October 2011, breached its rules on impartiality and accuracy.

The programme was a key BBC production that was presented by John Humphrys and explored the issue from a partisan view that claimed there was a ‘benefits dependency culture’ and an ‘age of entitlement’.

The BBC Trust considered an appeal brought by Child Poverty Action Group and an unidentified individual complainant – ‘complainant A’.

The Trust concluded:

That the absence of sufficient complementary statistical information to underpin contributors’ accounts, viewers were left unable to reach an informed opinion and the Accuracy guidelines had been breached.”

…

That, as both issues [the lack of context on the benefits bill and the failure to provide information on the number of job seekers] are central to the viewers’ understanding of the key issues discussed in the programme, and because this was a controversial issue which was also a major matter within the meaning of the Editorial Guidelines, the failure of accuracy had also led to a breach of impartiality.

Alison Garnham, Chief Executive of Child Poverty Action Group, said:

This programme, like too many media stories, failed the public by swallowing wholesale the evidence-free myth of a ‘dependency culture’ in which unemployment and rising benefit spending is the fault of the unemployed. The reality needs to be reported that only 3% of welfare expenditure goes on Jobseekers Allowance, and that aside from the direct effects of the recession, social security expenditure on working age benefits has not increased has a proportion of GDP in recent years.

CPAG first submitted its complaint in November 2011 and has been pursuing it through the different stages of the BBC’s complaints process.

They pointed out that:

– the programme didn’t bother with opposing views and relevant factual information, leading to the mischaracterisation of benefit claimants interviewed by John Humphrys as ‘victims of the benefit system’ despite their own focus on problems such as low pay and the high cost of childcare.

– the failure to include any expert voices from the UK with views opposing the government compounded the inaccuracy

– the programme gave the appearance of presenting the personal views of one of its senior news and current affairs presenters, in contravention of guidelines. This was compounded by an article in the Daily Mail with the headline ‘JOHN HUMPHRYS: How our welfare system has created an age of entitlement‘

The ruling follows the on air apology made to Shanene Thorpe in August 2012 after a hostile interview as part of a Newsnight report on the government’s programme of welfare reforms that falsely described her as making a lifestyle choice to live off the state.