The Department for Work and Pensions has spent £8.5 million on an ad campaign while making severe cuts to disability benefits.
Iain Duncan Smith's department has made a series of deep cuts to a number of vital areas, including disability benefit, and it has also stopped young people from being able to claim housing benefit.
Despite these cuts, the department found the money to spend £8.45 million on an ad campaign to get employers to register their staff into a pension.
As part of the campaign, the DWP created a character called "Workie", whom it described as a "striking physical embodiment of the workplace pension".
It's safe to say that people aren't too impressed.
One day, historians will look back in amused horror at the time the Tories spent £8.5m on Workie, a furry monster. https://t.co/O38qNTzYtz
"Workie"? Go home, Iain Duncan Smith, you're drunk
One person pointed out the similarities of Workie to another CGI character that already exists.
Here's Workie, Skivey, Scroungey, Dissy-abled & Syrian Snape. Where do I collect my £8.5 million?
Look at those teary eyes.
But not everyone is unimpressed. Pensions minister Ros Altmann said "lots of testing" had been done to try and engage people in the campaign.
@PensionsMonkey really high impact Tom. Lots of testing. Want to make this memorable and engage ppl in pensions. Ppl outside pensions ind!
Altmann, who has also changed her Twitter avatar to the character, said the department has been "inundated with requests" for Workie toys.
@martinbamford we've been inundated with requests for them. It's amazing! Workie is really popular. Can we make pensions popular too
Currently, those who earn more than £10,000 and are older than 20 should be automatically registered into a pension by their employer if they work at a medium or large company. This means that both staff and employers contribute towards the pension savings.
Now the DWP has launched the £8.5 million campaign to remind small business employers around the country that all employees must be registered by law into a pension scheme.
The DWP also tried to get in another pop culture reference, by launching an advert to riff on #BackToTheFuture day.
‘Pensions? Where we’re going we don’t need pensions…’ #DontIgnoreIt #BackToTheFuture https://t.co/fWkyXT9qBY
That's didn't go well either.
@dwppressoffice Do any humans work at the DWP?