Post by Teddy Bear on Apr 22, 2015 17:42:39 GMT
The BBC uses a report issued by a charity which either purposefully or accidentally makes a claim that over 1 million people in the UK are using its food banks. However the real figure is nowhere near it as many use food vouchers twice. There is also no attempt to show just who the people requesting these food vouchers are. Are they really needy and have a genuine claim, or are they abusing this charity with dubious claims.
A good journalist would attempt to find out this information and make it part of the story, but that's not the way the BBC operates. Since it suits their agenda to malign the Tories, they run the story as if the erroneous claim was completely valid. Only at the bottom of the article is their an faded quote 'update' to show the figures are not accurate, so leaving the article as written, instead of scrapping or amending it, is purely to mislead readers. You can see how the BBC have quotes from most other political parties to rub salt in the Tory 'wound'.
This is what the public is forced to pay for.
Here's the BBC article:
Here's the Spectator take on it.
A good journalist would attempt to find out this information and make it part of the story, but that's not the way the BBC operates. Since it suits their agenda to malign the Tories, they run the story as if the erroneous claim was completely valid. Only at the bottom of the article is their an faded quote 'update' to show the figures are not accurate, so leaving the article as written, instead of scrapping or amending it, is purely to mislead readers. You can see how the BBC have quotes from most other political parties to rub salt in the Tory 'wound'.
This is what the public is forced to pay for.
Here's the BBC article:
Record numbers use food banks - Trussell Trust
A "record number" of people received aid from UK food banks in the last year, a charity has said.
The Trussell Trust said three days' food was given out 1,084,604 times in the 2014-15 financial year, though it is not clear how many people got help because some visited more than once.
It is a rise of 19% on the previous 12 months - and Labour's Rachel Reeves called it a "shocking" increase.
The Conservatives said their economic plan was the best way to help families.
The Trussell Trust said more than a third of the aid given out by its 445 food banks across the UK went to children.
It describes itself as "a charity founded on Christian principles", and runs its network of food banks in partnership with churches and communities.
Care professionals such as doctors, health visitors, social workers, the Citizens Advice Bureau and the police identify people in need and issue them with a food bank voucher.
How many people use food banks?
No-one knows the exact figure for food bank use in 2014-15.
What we know is the Trussell Trust says its food banks - which are not the only ones out there - gave 1,084,604 people three days' food.
But any occasion when a person received the food counted - so a person who came in twice would be counted twice, and so on. If a family got food, each member counted.
The trust says that "on average 49% of food bank users only needed one food bank voucher in a year", so that half of users should add up to more than half a million people.
How many times the others received the emergency food boxes is hard to tell, though the trust says only 15% "needed help more than three times in a year".
The point, the trust says, is that "significant numbers" of men, women and children are going hungry.
'Listen to people'
Problems with benefits was the main reason people visited food banks and there had been an increase in those on low incomes seeking help, the trust said.
Food bank managers reported dealing with people struggling with insecure work, low pay and high living costs.
Trussell Trust UK food bank director Adrian Curtis said the charity's facilities were increasingly hosting additional services including debt counselling and welfare advice.
"The Trussell Trust's latest figures highlight how vital it is that we all work to prevent and relieve hunger in the UK," he said.
"It's crucial that we listen to the experiences of people using food banks to truly understand the nature of the problems they face."
Carmel McConnell, chief executive of the Magic Breakfast charity, which delivers food to schools, said there had been an increase in the number of requests for urgent deliveries.
Oxfam head of UK poverty Rachael Orr said the figures were "extremely worrying".
'A family too many'
Unite general secretary, Len McCluskey said the new figures revealed a "scandal of epic dimensions".
"Something has gone grotesquely wrong when so many people, in and out of work, have to turn to charity to feed their children," he said.
"One family failing to make ends meet each month is a family too many," a Conservative spokesman said.
"The best way to help families provide for themselves is cut taxes and to get more people into work and there are already two million more people in work since the election."
Labour's Ms Reeves said it showed the "Tory plan" was failing.
"David Cameron's failure to tackle low pay, the bedroom tax and delays in benefit payments have led to over a million people depending on emergency food aid," she said.
"Labour has a better plan to raise working families' living standards so fewer people depend on food banks to survive."
Green Party leader Natalie Bennett accused the other political parties of being "chained to their slogans about 'hard-working families'" while failing to tackle poverty.
In a speech at Sheffield Students' Union she said: "It is the duty of government to ensure that our economy provides decently paid jobs for all those looking for work.
"We believe that poverty is a result of political decisions - and that only a new kind of politics can overturn the race to the bottom on wages and benefits that we've seen for too long in this country."
Correction: The Trussell Trust has clarified that its earlier figure of more than a million people using food banks actually referred to the number of times food was given out.
A "record number" of people received aid from UK food banks in the last year, a charity has said.
The Trussell Trust said three days' food was given out 1,084,604 times in the 2014-15 financial year, though it is not clear how many people got help because some visited more than once.
It is a rise of 19% on the previous 12 months - and Labour's Rachel Reeves called it a "shocking" increase.
The Conservatives said their economic plan was the best way to help families.
The Trussell Trust said more than a third of the aid given out by its 445 food banks across the UK went to children.
It describes itself as "a charity founded on Christian principles", and runs its network of food banks in partnership with churches and communities.
Care professionals such as doctors, health visitors, social workers, the Citizens Advice Bureau and the police identify people in need and issue them with a food bank voucher.
How many people use food banks?
No-one knows the exact figure for food bank use in 2014-15.
What we know is the Trussell Trust says its food banks - which are not the only ones out there - gave 1,084,604 people three days' food.
But any occasion when a person received the food counted - so a person who came in twice would be counted twice, and so on. If a family got food, each member counted.
The trust says that "on average 49% of food bank users only needed one food bank voucher in a year", so that half of users should add up to more than half a million people.
How many times the others received the emergency food boxes is hard to tell, though the trust says only 15% "needed help more than three times in a year".
The point, the trust says, is that "significant numbers" of men, women and children are going hungry.
'Listen to people'
Problems with benefits was the main reason people visited food banks and there had been an increase in those on low incomes seeking help, the trust said.
Food bank managers reported dealing with people struggling with insecure work, low pay and high living costs.
Trussell Trust UK food bank director Adrian Curtis said the charity's facilities were increasingly hosting additional services including debt counselling and welfare advice.
"The Trussell Trust's latest figures highlight how vital it is that we all work to prevent and relieve hunger in the UK," he said.
"It's crucial that we listen to the experiences of people using food banks to truly understand the nature of the problems they face."
Carmel McConnell, chief executive of the Magic Breakfast charity, which delivers food to schools, said there had been an increase in the number of requests for urgent deliveries.
Oxfam head of UK poverty Rachael Orr said the figures were "extremely worrying".
'A family too many'
Unite general secretary, Len McCluskey said the new figures revealed a "scandal of epic dimensions".
"Something has gone grotesquely wrong when so many people, in and out of work, have to turn to charity to feed their children," he said.
"One family failing to make ends meet each month is a family too many," a Conservative spokesman said.
"The best way to help families provide for themselves is cut taxes and to get more people into work and there are already two million more people in work since the election."
Labour's Ms Reeves said it showed the "Tory plan" was failing.
"David Cameron's failure to tackle low pay, the bedroom tax and delays in benefit payments have led to over a million people depending on emergency food aid," she said.
"Labour has a better plan to raise working families' living standards so fewer people depend on food banks to survive."
Green Party leader Natalie Bennett accused the other political parties of being "chained to their slogans about 'hard-working families'" while failing to tackle poverty.
In a speech at Sheffield Students' Union she said: "It is the duty of government to ensure that our economy provides decently paid jobs for all those looking for work.
"We believe that poverty is a result of political decisions - and that only a new kind of politics can overturn the race to the bottom on wages and benefits that we've seen for too long in this country."
Correction: The Trussell Trust has clarified that its earlier figure of more than a million people using food banks actually referred to the number of times food was given out.
Here's the Spectator take on it.
The Trussell Trust’s misleading figures on food bank usage help no one
7 commentsRobert Smith 22 April 2015 14:29
A day after the BBC admitted to misquoting David Cameron on foxhunting, the broadcaster made another admission of error last night over the numbers of people using food banks. A Newsnight package on welfare initially declared that ‘numbers using food banks will hit a million this week’, but this figure was clarified with a short correction at the end of the programme:
‘In our welfare discussion we said there were a million people estimated to use food banks. There were actually a million uses by a smaller number of people than that.’
The flagship current affairs show wasn’t the only operation to make the mistake, which is based on a Trussell Trust press release titled ‘Foodbank use tops one million for the first time’. The Guardian headline today reads ‘Low pay and benefit sanctions push food bank users beyond a million’, and the Daily Mail says: ‘Storm as food banks claim they are feeding 1m people.’
But as the Trussell Trust admits in the small print, the claim that over one million unique people used food banks in the past year is inaccurate. ‘These are not all unique users,’ it says. ‘This is a measure of volume.’ Indeed, the one million figure has been calculated by tallying the number of vouchers handed out, and taking into account how many people each voucher can feed. However, the Trust says that ‘on average, people needed two foodbank vouchers in a year’. As the independent Full Fact points out, this means the actual number of people using food banks is likely to be around half the headline one million figure.
The report on the BBC News website this morning is more careful with the numbers. It reads:
‘The Trussell Trust said three days’ food was given out 1,084,604 times in the 2014-15 financial year, though it is not clear how many people got help because some visited more than once.’
However, the Trussell Trust itself continues to play fast and loose between the numbers of people using food banks, and the numbers of vouchers being handed out. In a tweet posted last night, the charity said: ‘It’s always sad adding up the totals for number of people fed by our food banks’. And yet, by its own admission, the trust cannot accurately calculate the numbers of individual people using food banks.
One family not being able to lay food on the table in a country like ours is one family too many, but misleading people as to the numbers of people using food banks is no solution. Journalists ought to question the reliability of statistics, but there should also be a responsibility on the behalf of respected charities not to deliberately mislead.
7 commentsRobert Smith 22 April 2015 14:29
A day after the BBC admitted to misquoting David Cameron on foxhunting, the broadcaster made another admission of error last night over the numbers of people using food banks. A Newsnight package on welfare initially declared that ‘numbers using food banks will hit a million this week’, but this figure was clarified with a short correction at the end of the programme:
‘In our welfare discussion we said there were a million people estimated to use food banks. There were actually a million uses by a smaller number of people than that.’
The flagship current affairs show wasn’t the only operation to make the mistake, which is based on a Trussell Trust press release titled ‘Foodbank use tops one million for the first time’. The Guardian headline today reads ‘Low pay and benefit sanctions push food bank users beyond a million’, and the Daily Mail says: ‘Storm as food banks claim they are feeding 1m people.’
But as the Trussell Trust admits in the small print, the claim that over one million unique people used food banks in the past year is inaccurate. ‘These are not all unique users,’ it says. ‘This is a measure of volume.’ Indeed, the one million figure has been calculated by tallying the number of vouchers handed out, and taking into account how many people each voucher can feed. However, the Trust says that ‘on average, people needed two foodbank vouchers in a year’. As the independent Full Fact points out, this means the actual number of people using food banks is likely to be around half the headline one million figure.
The report on the BBC News website this morning is more careful with the numbers. It reads:
‘The Trussell Trust said three days’ food was given out 1,084,604 times in the 2014-15 financial year, though it is not clear how many people got help because some visited more than once.’
However, the Trussell Trust itself continues to play fast and loose between the numbers of people using food banks, and the numbers of vouchers being handed out. In a tweet posted last night, the charity said: ‘It’s always sad adding up the totals for number of people fed by our food banks’. And yet, by its own admission, the trust cannot accurately calculate the numbers of individual people using food banks.
One family not being able to lay food on the table in a country like ours is one family too many, but misleading people as to the numbers of people using food banks is no solution. Journalists ought to question the reliability of statistics, but there should also be a responsibility on the behalf of respected charities not to deliberately mislead.
