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The comments on The Spectator’s Right to Reply by the Chief Executive of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Julia Unwin, in response to Coffee House Blog critique of the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) recent definition of poverty by Fraser Nelson make for absorbing reading.

Here’s a loose summary of the comments:

-          Educate people out of poverty with life and career skills

-          Get people out of poverty through confidence and self-worth

-          Don’t pay people to be poor

-          Labour bashing

-          Statistics bashing

-          Unwin doesn’t address the points raised in the original Coffee House article

-          Of course Unwin will say that

-          Exaggeration detracts from the real issue

On point three (don’t pay people to be poor), it’s worth noting that in Sweden (my seeming failsafe country of comparison when it comes to the UK’s social issues) unemployment benefits come in at less than £300 a month (well, so I’ve been led to believe anyway in a passing conversation at the weekend). Over there it’s doesn’t pay to be poor. But then, they have an above average education and standard of living.

Aside from commenting on the nitty gritty of the issue – for a start I’m no expert on social issues and generally find all this debate most enlightening – from a comms perspective it’s proving quite interesting. Having read Coffee House yesterday morning and thinking to myself ‘Joseph Rowntree Foundation ought to get on that’, I’m impressed that they responded as quickly as they did. A best practice example of speedy response that perhaps the comms team at RIM / Blackberry ought to take note of…

On the criticism that ‘of course she’ll say that’. Yes, of course she’s going to back the research! Why would you expect her not to; to comment as such is a waste of a comment. On the exaggeration point, perhaps it’s because I’m in comms, but it often surprises me that people are so naive about how the media works. Don’t they realise that if you give a journalist the choice between a hard-hitting statement and a wishy-washy statistic, they are in all probability going to go with the former (the one in question being “400,000 children will fall into relative poverty by 2015…”)?

In her response (whether it addresses Coffee House points or not), Unwin makes it clear that the overarching message of the research is that poverty levels in the UK are increasing. The headline statement is a means of carrying a core message, raising awareness of the charity and the work it does. The point has been made, the issue is now being widely discussed in broadcast and national media – and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation is in the middle of this.

Job done.