Bounty Mutiny: news and update

[RowanMumsnet]

Hello

As part of our ongoing Bounty Mutiny campaign, we've written a letter to Treasury minister David Gauke, asking him to reconsider Bounty's contract with the HMRC.

The HMRC pays Bounty £90,000 each year to distribute child benefit claim forms as part of the Bounty pack. As lots of you will know, the child benefit form is also freely available online or by phone, and our survey last year showed that some Bounty reps continue to heavily imply (or even baldly state) that women who refuse to give their personal details at the bedside will be unable to claim Child Benefit.

As Justine MN has said:

"By paying Bounty a fee for distributing child benefit forms, the HMRC is effectively handing Bounty a bargaining chip it can use to persuade new mums to hand over personal details for Bounty's own commercial gain. Thousands of Mumsnet users have made it clear that the hours after birth on a postnatal ward are neither the time nor place for the hard sell, and it's time for the government to stop financially supporting this process."

There's a petition asking the HMRC to end its commercial relationship with Bounty that has over 66,000 signatures (please do sign if you haven't!).

Just thought we'd let you know where we're at - as ever, do please let us know what you think, here on the thread, and on Twitter using #bountymutiny. And please share this page or the text of our letter far and wide, and don't forget to sign the petition. And of course if you'd like to let David Gauke know what you think, you can get in touch with him at the Treasury, or @davidgauke on Twitter.

Thanks
MNHQ

Signed but why isn't it on the official government website that forces a debate at 100k signatures?

@AndHarry

Signed but why isn't it on the official government website that forces a debate at 100k signatures?

The petition was started by woman called Vicky Garner who's a midwife - it's not MNHQ's petition so it was Vicky's choice to start it on Change.org.

I cannot believe HMRC pay Bounty to do this. So shocked and angry!
I had my second baby last July and was completely invaded by a bounty rep in my side room whilst recovering from a c-section. I felt I had noone to save me from this terrifying woman who insisted on lifting my baby away from me whilst I was trying to breastfeed so she could position her for photographs. Said lady then tried to sell me the photographs!!! I suppose I should have been more forthright in protesting but I hadn't slept in days and was still recovering from the op. dreadful that they are allowed onto wards to annoy new mums and babies in return for a miniscule pot of sudocream!

I really pleased to see this. I know people say you can just say no to them but when I had my first baby I had no idea about bounty reps. Before visiting times on a ward with no other staff a woman approached me and said she needed some details and photos for security reasons. I had no reason to think this woman didn't work for the hospital until after she took the details and a pretty crap photo and then started to try and sell me the photo.

i must be one of the minority but with both births i didn't see a bounty rep!
DD1 was born just before 7am and i stayed until the next day, so more than 24hours... DD2 i had her just before 4am and was out of there the minute i was allowed to leave at 10.01 so i guess she didn't get much of a chance that time.

Signed.

Signed. I was harrassed by Bounty reps after each of my 3 dcs were born...I'm normally pretty bolshy, but you're so emotionally raw and exposed at that point in time it's really hard to say no.

I also thought that bounty paid for the privilege/access to new mums!

I have signed too.

When my DS was born last September I ignored the bounty rep and asked the midwife to bring me a bounty pack on her visit which she suggested (no info exchanged).

I agree, it makes sense for the registrar to give them out.

Signed.

I thought it was bad enough that they were allowed to invade the privacy of patients on maternity wards so soon after birth but I had no idea the govenment were paying them.

I had my own bad experience with a Bounty rep when my DS was born. I was unable to move after a difficult labour and emergency caesarian and had no idea who Bounty were but I did know I didn't want a stranger marching in and taking photos of my newborn without asking. I sent her away but was made to feel very bad about it.

I think the registrar giving out the CB forms when the birth is registered is a very practical idea.

I suspect Health Visitors and Registrars would want paying extra for distributing anything. And how do they get them delivered and where do they store them? There are thousands of registrar offices in the UK, so distribution alone would cost the taxpayer millions. Yet the real issue is probably the cost of the pack itself. At around £2.50 + each, these cost British taxpayers around £2m a year to produce. And given the time-sensitivity of the information they contain, they also have a limited shelf-life. So the £90k annual fee to Bounty for reaching 95%/770,000 of all new parents represents rather less than 5% of the annual costs of getting this important information to its target audience. It would be plain daft and unbelievably wasteful to produce additional packs merely so that they can gather dust in Sure Start drop-in centres, the car-boots of Health Visitors or Registrars’ offices. Certainly, using Registrars would lead to incredible wastage, a total lack of environmental sustainability and the probability that a large percentage of parents would get out-dated or obsolete information. Of course, the Government knows all this, which is why – if it has any sense at all - its going to ignore this petition.

Frankly, in my view this whole Mumsnet anti-Bounty campaign is ridiculous. Mums can just take the Bounty pack and say ‘no’ to mailings and chuck the items they don’t want from the pack (maybe.... the little pot of Sudocrem, or the set of newborn nappies, or the breastfeeding booklet perhaps) And wake up! Mumsnet is a wonderful website community, but it competes with Bounty for commercial revenue. This petition is no different from having Pepsi co-ordinate a campaign against Coca-Cola.

Every single one of your objections also applies to Bounty, NickHS.

And in what way does MN compete with Bounty for commercial revenue? MN has no presence in hospitals for anything, is not a data-collection company (Bounty's core business), and doesn't even flog over-priced photos.

Claiming MN and Bounty are competing is like claiming Pepsi is competing with Greggs the Bakers if they offered a free box of Ribena with their sausage rolls.

As far as I'm aware, I'm not objecting to anything, just pointing out the poor economics of using the distribution mechanics suggested by a number of those posting on this thread. Nor did I claim that Bounty and Mumsnet were the same. I merely pointed out that they chase the same marketing expenditure from the same companies. This is demonstrably the case and it makes Mumsnet a competitor to Bounty in the mother and baby marketplace.

Every single one of your points also applies to Bounty, Nick.

Better?

And your Pepsi /Coca Cola analogy is still rubbish.

Bounty's core business is data collection. It makes no secret of this in its corporate communications. I've heard it also runs a small social website. But this could well be a loss-leader to consolidate its brand, or simply another means of data collection. It's certainly nowhere near its core business.

MN's core business is a social website and it depends heavily on marketing revenue. So a closer competitor might well be The Times.

Do you think The Times therefore shouldn't criticize MN for, oh, I dunno, the We Believe You campaign? Or that any criticism would be "ridiculous" because both businesses run adverts from middle class holiday companies?

But I'm glad you've tried that argument on, Nick, because Bounty gave it a whirl when the Bounty Mutiny first came up.

So I'm happy to shoot it down.

Otherwise we really do find ourselves in a situation where no media organisation, from MN and The Times to The Local Herald can never criticize anyone who's ever printed a leaflet or stuck up their own talk board as long as it has advertising on it.

no a media organisation

Hi Nick

Aside from agreeing with all of PartialFancy's points , we just wanted to make two things clear: first, the Bounty Mutiny campaign came about because of the enormous strength of feeling about Bounty's practices among MNers, going back many years - and as we can see from this thread alone, reports of poor practice are still coming in.

Second, we just wanted to point out that the Child Benefit Form is freely available via a single phone call (as well as online).

Frankly, in my view this whole Mumsnet anti-Bounty campaign is ridiculous. Mums can just take the Bounty pack and say ‘no’ to mailings and chuck the items they don’t want from the pack

Except this is precisely the point - they can't. The situation is disempowering to women and there are lots of situations where women having just given birth find it very difficult to say 'no' even if they normally would under any other circumstance.

Bounty are categorically NOT a parenting company. They even define themselves as a data collection company primarily though this message does not clearly get across to the general public as you quite beautifully demonstrate.

As for Child Benefit forms, I would rather extra tax payers money was ultimately spent on distribution, rather than allowing cost to be used as justification for unethical and exploitative practices.

Not to mention that 5 years ago, your argument might have held a lot more weight, but now it is freely available online and the number of people who have access to the internet is so high, perhaps we should be looking to expand this as the primary method of distribution. Afterall my local hospital no longer give women a printed copies of various maternity related material and simply point you online as a cost saving measure. If women are encouraged to print a form themselves then the costs of printing itself - not just distribution - could be vastly reduced.

Instead, we should suggest that anyone who is unable to access this form at home should be able to print out at libraries or job centres instead for free. The cost of doing this, would be a lot less than the current system.

As it stands, if when I apply for Maternity Allowance, I have to fill in forms that are not distributed by Bounty. Why, if they are doing such a public service, are they not also putting Maternity Allowance or SMP forms in Bounty Packs? Why is the emphasis put on women to access these themselves but not a CB form? Its double standards and only stands to back up the idea that using the pack is clearly nothing more than the government supporting a commercial practise that encourages business Bounty's direction.

Noooo to completely online!

Getting to a library 10 miles away after your ceasarian with a new born and your two toddlers when you don't have a car? And then being told you can only book a session on the computers for the three days ahead, come back then?

Honestly, just no.

It's lovely to embrace the savings where people do choose online. But failing to also distribute printed forms in an inclusive way? Nope. It's exactly the most vulnerable who will suffer.

Fair enough, not completely online, but maybe we should be encouraging people to source their own form if they can rather than just taking one.

Truly, Red, don't get into the "encouraging" business.

What it means in practice is you make it harder for people to get a paper form in the hope they give up and go online instead.

Which will hit exactly the most vulnerable, least informed, least entitled and least able to fight for things.

I am no blind apologist for Bounty. They need to be held accountable for what they do and how they do it. But I remain hugely suspicious of Mumsnet's enthusiasm for their own anti-Bounty campaign, given the obvious commercial criteria involved. I stand firmly by my analogy of Pepsi and Coca-Cola. Mumsnet and Bounty compete for the same revenue from the same brands. It's an inescapable fact.

I am also not surprised that the NCT and Mumsnet are in accord over this campaign: the core membership of both groups show themselves to be remarkably adept at deciding what's best for all parents, not least those that lie outside their articulate – and ostensibly middle-class - reach.

Bounty is a conduit for lots of free samples and best-practice parenting information to 95%+ of all Mums. They may not all be 'connected' or media-savvy, but it would also appear that the vast majority of mums appreciate Bounty's services, just as most find the Bounty New Mother Pack a highly convenient way of receiving the HMRC's Child Benefit Pack. Taxpayers can only applaud successive Governments for sourcing the cheapest and most efficient means of distributing this important information.

But banning Bounty is a daft idea. It's as daft as banning chocolate (and where would Mumsnet be without those delicious dollops of sponsorship cash from Cadburys?) 95%+ coverage is impressive: Bounty clearly do a good job. Don't be jealous of their success: use your influence and muscle to make them better. In the nineties, pressure from the UNICEF UK Baby Friendly Initiative helped make sure that Bounty's sample packs were beyond reproach and that their publications were more on-message than anything produced by the Department of Health. So demand that their information reflects the latest best practice advice. Make certain that the 'Bounty Lady' appears like she comes from Bounty and not the midwifery department. Insist that they make damn sure all new mothers appreciate that they have the option to say 'no' to mailings and 'no' to photographs come to that. (I find it surprising that in the age of the mobile phone camera there is even a market for bedside baby photography, but what do I know?) Even if they pay for the privilege of distributing packs in hospitals, Bounty know it is a privilege they have to earn. Just make them more accountable. That way everyone wins, including the vast majority of mums. You know who I mean, the one's that like free stuff.

Nick, your post is largely bonkers.

Taxpayers can only applaud successive Governments for sourcing the cheapest and most efficient means of distributing this important information.

Yeah, listen to the taxpayers applauding on this thread. Having the CB form benefits Bounty. They should be the ones paying HMRC, if any money changes hands.

Banning Bounty reps is like banning chocolate? Er, are you sure you're quite well?

And the big one: can you explain to me why all these Bounty freebies cannot be handed out from a side ward or shop in the foyer? Permanently available, no fear of "missing the Bounty lady" for those who want, no infection control issues, no privacy issues, and no risk of hard sell from reps at the bedside.

MN Bounty Mutiny is about getting the reps off the wards. Please explain in words of one syllable why you think that's bad.

They need to be held accountable for what they do and how they do it.

Yes, but this involves how the hospitals allow them access in the first place. They have duties of care which are allowing Bounty to do this, and in fact give them legitimacy in what they do at the same time.

If you look at Trading Standards Regulations then what Bounty do are most definitely not Best Practice. Not by a long shot.

And the involvement of the NHS makes it next to impossible to challenge as women feel powerless or that what Bounty do must have been properly vetted because they wouldn't be allowed on wards otherwise.

It is the combination of the NHS and Bounty that are the issue - not Bounty alone.

This is why anything that legitimises Bounty in someway needs to be challenged with government. The real issue, is that there is a massive conflict of interests going on between a commercial company and the responsibility of public services to people at a vulnerable time.

It is facilitating exploitation. Pure and simple. And there is no justification for it at all. Just as cost is important in the care of the elderly, it should not be at the expense of their dignity nor exploiting a situation of vulnerability. These responsibilities MUST be paid for as a basic minimum standard for people under the care of the authorities.