The Social Security
Over five million people claim benefits from the DHSS; the social security budget runs to some E46 billion. Behind these cold statistics are a myriad of stories, of needs and problems. In the frontline dealing with them are the Social Security officers. Day in, day out, in DHSS offices across the country, they face the claimants and measure out the money. Caught between society's need for a welfare system, and the equal need to control its cost, they are widely seen by claimants as misers, and by the rest of us as faceless bureaucrats.
For the first time, a crew has been given access to film claimants and officers in their daily encounters inside a DHSS office. This film is the result: a record of what happened in the week the Government altered the Social Security regulations, inside one DHSS office.
Film cameraman REX MAIDMENT Film editor LIZ THOYTS Producer STEVE POOLE BBC Bristol