IAN HYLAND on last night’s telly
Universal Credit: Inside The Welfare State, BBC2: ★★★★★
It was one of those shows that you hoped might be watched by those in power
The BBC showed one of those documentaries it is still the best at making last night. Universal Credit: Inside The Welfare State on BBC2 at 9pm looked at the problems with the shake-up of the benefits system which was announced in 2010.
Like BBC2’s fly-on-the-wall NHS series Hospital, it was one of those programmes you hoped might be watched by those in power.
Throughout the course of this hour-long programme, which is the first in a three-part series, we met the people who are claiming Universal Credit, the people who are behind it at the Department of Work and Pensions and the people who are on the front line in Job Centres dealing with all the issues that such a massive overhaul of a massive system has caused.
Some of the numbers were mindboggling. In Britain today, there are seven million people claiming some kind of benefit.
You could see why the Government might want to streamline payments, but – and not for the first time – you had to wonder whether David Cameron knew what he was actually getting into.
Not that this documentary made any judgments. It simply presented the facts and let you make up your own mind about it.
For example, when new claimant, former NHS worker Rachel, 48, said “I’m a single parent with two children and Universal Credit is a lot to get your head around,” you could simply empathise with her.
Or you could also wonder whether Universal Credit was designed that way to put claimants off.