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Hello,
I am from BBC Current Affairs. We are in the process of Developing an idea for a BBC Three documentary looking at how the forthcoming changes to benefits will affect single parents.
If you fear you're going to lose out and you're under the age of 30 we'd love to hear from you. At this stage we're simply looking to add your details to a document that the Channel Controller will assess, before he decides whether to go ahead with the project.
So it's not a dead cetrainty - but if it does get commissioned there will be some foreign travel involved.
If you're vaguely interested or just want to know more give me a call or email me on toby.sealey@bbc.co.uk or 020 800 85769.
My name's Toby Sealey.
Maybe the underlying premise of the documentary is single 'mums' on benefits, (I expect parents was an after though when they stopped and though, maybe there are some dads too) either trying to dispel the generally held belief or connotations that generally go along with 'single mum' (on benefits) or maybe they just want to produce yet another documentary that brings in viewers by touching on a subject that produces contrasting opinions in some sort of demographic they have spent money on researching.
Any program the BBC produces is aimed at bringing in viewers and subsequently can be dispelled at sensational tripe bearing very little grounding in the reality of your average person.
They are not bothered about facts, beyond being able to substantiate what they say legally (based on more facts, based on fact based on statistics based on you can say anything with facts)... just ratings.
Every time someone comes in here from the media it gets my hackles up.
Any documentary that highlights the problems of people in the lower echelons of society does nothing, because people don't care. They may stop and thing for a few minutes but then they'll be watching Graham Norton or something five minutes later and have forgotten, pop down to the shops, get a lottery ticket and a bottle of wine and life goes on. They will generally still hold their bigoted views, like that all single parents on benefits deserve their lot apart from the one person they know and the Polish are stealing our jobs.
Television should stick to what it does best... dulling the masses, more Graham Coxon! a documentary on single parents hosted by Graham Coxon I would watch, providing he touched briefly on life the universe and everything.
: )
Why just under 30 years old ? I am 50 year old single mum of a 10 year old boy and I have chronic health problems. We have moved 4 times in 3 years due to Housing Benefit never paying the entire rental amount and the private landlords asking us to leave due to the discrepancy. I just arrived at our new flat in Scotland, having moved from the South of England, and within 3 weeks of moving in, under my maiden name, the courts had issued me with an enforcement order for a speeding fine and for failing to appear in court in Dorset just a fortnight before the order was posted. I was suffering health issues and lack of money to get to the South of England and had no-one to look after my son while I travelled a 1000 mile round trip just to appear in court. The thing that I find staggering, is that the Child Support Agency have failed miserably to find my ex husband in England and bring him to justice in the 3 YEARS they have had to do so, whilst a Magistrate's Court can locate me within 3 WEEKS under a different name, when I have not even had time to register for council tax or housing benefit. HOW DO THEY DO THAT ???!!! I had not registered my new address with anyone apart from with my GP and my bank.
The fact is that myself and my child have been reduced to poverty due entirely to the Child Support Agency's lack of power to force my son's father to pay child maintenance which is what reduced me to such poverty that I was unable to pay the original fine. The courts and the CSA are both government institutions. WHY do the CSA not have the same miraculous powers to search and locate as the magistrates' courts do ? I would like to lobby for the government to give the same powers to the CSA as they do to Magistrate's Courts for enforcing minor traffic offences. I am looking for support in this aim and would love the BBC to get involved.