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Iain Duncan Smith spent more than £8.5 million on an ad campaign featuring a giant fluffy monster - as his department makes savage cuts to disability benefit.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will tonight launch the bizarre new ad campaign featuring the character, known as Workie.

Mr Duncan Smith has been tasked with slashing the welfare bill, axeing vital help for disabled people, reducing the welfare cap and banning young people from claiming housing benefit.

In June, the Work and Pensions Secretary choked off government cash for the Independent Living Fund (ILF), which helped 18,000 disabled people live at home instead of in care homes.

(Image: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire)

The services the fund used to pay for will now be the responsibility of local authorities, many of whom have had their budgets cut by millions, and at least 30 of whom have not ringfenced money for disabled support.

A DWP spokesperson said: “More than £260m will be made available to former ILF users in 2015/16. This is the same amount that would have been allocated to the ILF in that year had responsibility remained within DWP.”

But some disabled people say the reality is their care has been cut by half as a result of ILF being scrapped.

The DWP confirmed this morning that the campaign, which will premiere after tonight's episode of Coronation Street, cost £8.54m.

Labour's shadow pensions minister Nick Thomas-Symonds MP said: “Getting workplace pensions right is an important job and auto-enrolment brings great benefits, so the government is right to do some public awareness campaigning.

"But perhaps spending £8.45m on the UK’s most expensive monster is not the most effective or efficient way to do this”

Here's everything you need to know about IDS' bizarre and costly creation.

Meet Workie

Workie is a Pixar-esque fluffy monster character. He's about nine feet tall, has a mix of blue and purple fur and horns.

In the ad, he's seen bumbling around in a park trying to get the attention of small business owners, only for them to turn their backs and ignore him.

The only attention he gets is from a small French bulldog, who looks quizzically at him.

He cost £8.54m

Tonight's Workie ad, which will play in the costly commercial break between Coronation Street and Emmerdale , is the first of a series of spots promoting the policy.

The DWP say the whole ad campaign cost £8.54m

That's enough to pay for 1,725 young people to get housing benefit for a year.

Or enough to remove 18,813 people from the bedroom tax for a year.

Or enough to let 448 disabled people live independently, instead of in a care home for a year.

Or enough to sign Brazillian footballer Philippe Coutinho.

Though we suspect Workie wouldn't be much use filling the void in Liverpool's midfield.

Things you can get for £8.54m People to be spared bedroom tax 18,813 Disabled people to live independently 448 Philippe Coutinho 1

He's the "physical embodiment of the workplace pension"

(Image: YouTube)

That's an actual quote from the DWP press release.

Pensions minister Ros Altmann added: "This is a fun and quirky campaign but behind it lies a very serious message.

"We need everyone to know they are entitled to a workplace pension – and we need all employers to understand their legal responsibility to their staff, but also to feel more positive about engaging with workplace pensions."

And it gets worse

Not satisfied with trying to get adults interested in a fairly dry policy using a character that would seem to appeal mostly to children, they're also appropriating beloved pop culture references into their campaign.

That's an actual tweet from a government department.

Workie is just the latest in a string of questionable ad campaigns from the DWP

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Presumably Iain Duncan Smith signed off on the giant cartoon monster after the ad with the rap song failed to produce the desired result.

In fact, Workie is the third major ad campaign to promote workplace pensions since they were introduced in 2011 - remember the one with Theo Paphitis and Karen Brady?

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It's not gone down at all well

Here's how Twitter reacted to Workie, and the awful Back to the Future tweet.