Saints And Scroungers Seeks ‘Saints’

An email I have just received:

Dear Same Difference,

I hope this finds you well. I have come across your website and think you might be able to help…? I am hoping you might have a network of people who might want to voice their story and might fit our bill!

I am urgently looking for suitable case studies for our new Series of BBC 1’s Saints and Scroungers. I’d be grateful if you could spread the word on my behalf to case workers on the ground, colleagues friends, workers in the field, to see if anyone has any suitable case studies or stories?

CASE STUDIES:
I am looking for good (emotional) stories, but because of this Public Purse help/ assistance they  are now in a better place. We want to demonstrate the importance of public money and where it’s working positively. There needs to be a Public Purse link somewhere. This could be that they are now getting the correct benefits, they didn’t know they were entitled, or maybe access to care/ equipment to help them train, maybe the help ( a charity or welfare officer) is helping save the public purse? e.g. less reliance on NHS full time, carers etc because of X Charity or Person. We are looking for stories with some sort of positive outcome to show the importance of the Welfare State to the rightfully entitled.

I appreciate this might sound very wide but I hope it gives you an idea of the breadth of our programme. We like to get a mix throughout the Series and the case studies we film a wide range of people with for example; Cancer, Cerebral Palsy, ADHD, Learning Difficulties, Blind people, parents with babies with rare conditions etc. We put our contributors in a sympathetic light; showing how they cope in the face of adversity as well as how and where Public Money helps millions of people.

FILMING:
We have from 1 – 1.5 days worth of filming time per story and we are looking to film asap. Our deadline for filming is late July. We usually film a backstory interview at the person’s house, then try to film them out and about or ‘doing’ something that is relevant to their story e.g. shots of them at work, getting from A to B, filming with the Carer at Home etc. If there is only 1 key person in the story- then it’s great to know if there is anyone else who would be willing to be filmed too as this really helps.

Here’s some info about the Programme:

BBC1’s flagship series Saints and Scroungers is currently in its 6th series.  The series airs on BBC1 at 11am and this series is due to air in the autumn. It is then repeated  around 7.30pm on BBC2 usually a few months later.

The Saints is side to the programme looks at those who are benefitting from the public purse, be it receiving welfare benefits for their disability, ill health, financial status or operations on the NHS – anything where money from the taxpayer pot has made a huge difference to someone’s life.

The scrounger side programme is about convicted criminals. It highlights the work of fraud investigators from local authorities, the Department for Work and Pensions, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, police and economic crime units and NHS Protect. We interview investigators about cases of theft from the public purse which have already had a successful prosecution and sentence and cover how the crime came to light, how the investigation unfolded and what the sentence handed down was.

We average 1.5m viewing figures which is usually the highest in its time slot and we get excellent feedback and comments from viewers. You can view clips on line if you wish too.

Please do give me a call if you have any further questions.

Best wishes,

Gemma Delaney