DWP caught with its pants down

The Department of Work and Sanctions, oops, I mean Pensions, was all over the news yesterday. They’ve been caught bang to rights inventing testimonies from people that have apparently benefited from their services on official DWP publications.

Here is a sensible Guardian article to kick us all off.

A DWP leaflet included pictures of ‘Sarah’ and ‘Zac’, who were presented as sickness benefits claimants – except neither existed. The DWP now says they were for ‘illustrative’ purposes only.

Twitter has been having a lot of fun with this news. The hashtag #fakeDWPStories has been going gangbusters.

How the fuck has IDS gotten to where he is?

Is this a new thing? Whenever I see testimonies from anyone on flyers, promotional material etc, I assume it’s false as a rule?

The point of testimonials is to have honest opinions that promote your product or service. Collectively, they’re incomplete - no-one ever puts the bad stuff up, but there is an expectation that the ones that are printed are true. Any firm caught making shit up would be lampooned, especially if it was well-known.

A government inventing testimonials which prop up highly contentious legislation. The exact same organisation is presently subject to a 150,000 strong petition asking how many people have died since the government instituted the sanctions regime.

If a children’s home or hospital were using fake testimony to cover abuse or malfeasance, we’d think it a very bad thing. Don’t think this is that different.

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Originally posted by @pap

The Department of Work and Sanctions, oops, I mean Pensions, was all over the news yesterday. They’ve been caught bang to rights inventing testimonies from people that have apparently benefited from their services on official DWP publications.

Here is a sensible Guardian article to kick us all off.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/aug/18/dwp-admits-making-up-positive-quotes-from-benefits-claimants-for-leaflet

A DWP leaflet included pictures of ‘Sarah’ and ‘Zac’, who were presented as sickness benefits claimants – except neither existed. The DWP now says they were for ‘illustrative’ purposes only.

Twitter has been having a lot of fun with this news. The hashtag #fakeDWPStories has been going gangbusters.

How the fuck has IDS gotten to where he is?

I suspect that the first time IDS knew about it was when it blew up in his face this morning. Someone in their PR department has used their initiative and made an executive decision to make up the quotes because they could be arsed to find someone who was saying what they wanted to convey.

Ordinarily I’d agree, but this is IDS we’re talking about. If you’re not actually qualified for the job, or in his case, not even qualified at graduate level, then you’ve got to get by somehow. Remember that IDS tried to insinuate he’d done a proper education and everything.

Does make me laugh. Our minister for DWP has never been fucking arsed to do anything himself. Looked after by his wife’s money, and had to pretend he’d done meaningful education.

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I don’t know Pap - you are paying him north of £140k pa to do this - that seems enough to be financially independent

It wasn’t clear (to me at least) that the image from the article that you posted contains was a before and after.

Before I read the article, it looked as the image had always had the disclaimer present - " The people in this fact sheet aren’t real…".

In fact, this was added after the initial fuss and the ‘real’ photos were also replaced by silhouetted figures.

Now I believe it has been scrapped.

Originally posted by @CB-Saint

I don’t know Pap - you are paying him north of £140k pa to do this - that seems enough to be financially independent

That just makes it worse. We could be paying £140k for someone that has got a few qualifications.

I just wonder if someone who has never really had to do work to live is the most appropriate custodian for the millions of people that do, and I wouldn’t put direct knowledge past him.

Besides, the flip side of being in charge is accountability. He either doesn’t know what is going on within his own agency, or they’ve deliberately concocted lies to make their policy more palatable.

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Given the wide reputation of the DWP’s sanction regime for oppressiveness and unaccountability, a government department department lying about it should be serious enough to be a resignation issue for IDS.

I guess we’ll have to see what fuss the opposition, the SNP, make of it.

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I think that’s a good attitude to have, Shirty, but for such an inflammatory and controversial piece of social punishment, I feel the DWP should assume they’re not writing for someone as rightly cynical as you.

I does beg the question, I guess, of why they decided to scrap it and not just replace the fictional quotes with real quotes.

Especially given this from the Guardian article.

Advertising Standards Authority rules state that “marketing communications must not materially mislead or be likely to do so”. The regulator’s rules also say that marketers “ must hold documentary evidence that a testimonial or endorsement used in a marketing communication is genuine , unless it is obviously fictitious, and hold contact details for the person who, or organisation that, gives it”.

I’m confused.

Are you saying that DWP has had his Ashley Madison account details leaked or is it IDS?

When looking at “online testimonials” they actually give a fair reality check, with something like 50% or more of their “female profiles” being allegedly fake.

In fact anyone who believes anything like this is actually real clearly doesn’t understand much of the utter bo;;ocks that marketing luvvies are taught on MBA courses. :cool:

OBVIOUSLY they had to use fake testimonials, after all who in their right mind would want their mug shot and “things they messed up when claiming benefits” to be posted all over the innerweb for all of future history.

Not saying it is RIGHT, just saying that anyone who thought it was real needs to step into realityland for a moment.

Oh and the PR genius should be very publicly sacked and prosecuted. But that won’t happen either

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not right, I just didn’t think people usually believed this trash.

Considering the DWP sanctions are the part of the Tory policies I disagree with most, I couldn’t care less if it looked bad on them. What they’re doing is wrong.

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https://twitter.com/swindon81/status/633682582161477632

Wouldn’t it be lovely if for once in this situation - just once - somebody would come out, hold their hands up and say “we done fucked up”.

Slightly confused as to whether this makes me a relentless optimist or pessimist.

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IDS facing calls to resign over the fake quotes scandal.