Hayley seems harsh but gets results Channel 4

Here’s a sobering fact: ­social security payouts ­exceed the sum raised from income tax – which, if you look at a wage slip, is not inconsiderable.

Instead of trying to sort out the mess internally, the Government is using ­questionable private companies, or “benefit busters”, to do the job.

The largest of these gets £100 a week for every person who takes its six-week back-to-work course and ­receives a bonus for everyone it gets into employment.

It must be doing quite well. Majority shareholder Emma Harrison is a multi-millionaire living in the lap of luxury. “It’s like coming to Hogwarts,” says employee Hayley when she is invited round for tea.

But forget about Emma, Hayley is the reason to watch this documentary; the ­eminently quotable Hayley and her group of self-loathing single parents who make this almost ­worthy of cult status.

“Why aren’t you all queuing up at McDonald’s, Burger King and KFC if you want a job?” the flesh-and-blood version of The League of Gentlemen’s Pauline sarcastically asks.

“Would you like to see on your epitaph: ‘lovely girl but never did much’?”

Hayley runs a confidence-boosting course that seems to be more about morale-crushing, but her patronising self-help jibber-jabber ­actually has some effect.

“Positivity is the key to everything,” she says, ­producing a triple-A ­battery as a visual aid, and the ­metaphors keep coming.

“Butterfly... egg... ugly ­caterpillar,” she adds, taking her group through the life cycle of the lepidoptera like Bill Oddie in a neckerchief.

“And then it goes into its chrysalis, dun’t it? And there it stays till it grows into something absolutely beautiful.

“At the moment, you’re stook in that chrysalis, aren’t you?”

Genius. But while you’re laughing at Hayley, you see her methods starting to work, and begin to like her.

Despite displaying the ­compassion of a big-boned Eva Braun, and blundering into delicate situations like Marjorie Dawes (“When you say you’ve had a glass of wine, is that all it is?”) at least she’s listening and, by the end of it, the group are clawing to get back to work.

Well, except for Yvette, 34, who has four ­children.

“I get 300 quid a week now,” Yvette says, filled with guilt but trapped.

“I’m comfortable. They make it so easy.”

Whether to remain unemployed or to look for a job is a complex socio-political, ­ethical and psychological ­issue for these lone parents, but Hayley skilfully nails the quandary.

“Do you have Asda Smart Choice or do you have Birds Eye?” Exactly.