The BEST episodes of Dispatches season 2016

#1 - Secrets of Cadbury

Season 2016 - Episode 8 - Aired 3/21/2016

It's six years since Britain's beloved Cadbury was bought by American giant Kraft. As the Easter chocolate indulgence approaches, the episode will explore what's been happening to one of our favourite brands.

#2 - Living With Nightmare Neighbours

Season 2016 - Episode 24 - Aired 10/17/2016

The government promised to fix so-called neighbours from hell with its Troubled Families Programme, but Dispatches meets families who say it has had no real impact.

#3 - Where's My Missing Mail?

Season 2016 - Episode 1 - Aired 2/1/2016

The way we shop has changed and we increasingly rely on parcel firms to deliver our shopping to our front door. But as the number of items delivered has risen, so have complaints. It's a low margins, high volume business, where missing items, broken gifts and late deliveries are often complained about. Dispatches goes undercover to investigate.

#4 - How the Rich Avoid Tax

Season 2016 - Episode 2 - Aired 2/8/2016

In this Dispatches Special, actor Greg Wise takes the extraordinary step of secretly recording his own meetings with 'tax planners'. Using his privileged status as a high net-worth individual, Greg goes into the world of high-end tax avoidance and meets 'advisors' keen to help the rich and famous minimise their tax liabilities or even avoid tax altogether. While tax avoidance is legal, he is told that the amount of tax he chooses to pay is down to his own 'moral barometer', with one advisor offering to 'zero his tax bill'. The tax dodging schemes promoted to Greg involve setting up companies in offshore tax havens and ramping up investment to maximise government tax relief. Last year, angered by reports of rich individuals not paying their 'fair share' of tax, Greg threatened to withhold his own tax payments until something was done. In this programme he uncovers a normally hidden world of tax avoidance, available only to the rich.

#5 - Dirty Secrets: What's Really in Our Air?

Season 2016 - Episode 4 - Aired 2/22/2016

Morland Sanders investigates hidden pollution hotpots in our everyday lives.

#6 - The Truth About Cheap Flights

Season 2016 - Episode 12 - Aired 4/25/2016

It's that time of year, when dreams of a summer escape will soon be just an air ticket away, if only you can find the best price. Dispatches goes undercover to learn the secrets of a major player in the travel trade. Are the lowest fares all that they seem? Are you getting the best deal? And if your plans need to change, how will you be treated? Harry Wallop uses secret camera footage to test the promises of the travel business.

#7 - How Safe Is Your Car?

Season 2016 - Episode 18 - Aired 8/1/2016

With new evidence indicating that some cars might not perform as well in crashes as their safety rating suggests, Dispatches investigates whether we can trust manufacturers and testers with car safety

#8 - Britain's Wealth Gap

Season 2016 - Episode 23 - Aired 10/10/2016

Can't afford a house? Haven't got a pension? Don't expect a pay rise? If so, you're probably part of Britain's younger, struggling generations. The wealth gap between young and old has become a defining feature of our times; in this special Dispatches, Spectator Editor Fraser Nelson investigates just how divided our country has become. Nelson reveals new figures showing the extent of the gap and investigates its causes. He speaks to leading politicians and hears fears from the top of Government that older voters have effectively been kept sweet at the expense of the young.

#9 - Britain's Homebuilding Scandal

Season 2016 - Episode 27 - Aired 11/7/2016

Many are struggling to find a home; a reason why is too few houses are being built. Liam Halligan probes developers deliberately holding back land to maximise profits.

#10 - Housing Benefit Millionaires

Season 2016 - Episode 7 - Aired 3/14/2016

This episode explores the housing crisis and homelessness, and how it is on the rise in Britain. The episode will reveal the numbers and scale of rogue landlords, confronting those exploiting the benefit system to make millions from supplying poor accomdatation.

#11 - Isis and the Missing Treasures

Season 2016 - Episode 11 - Aired 4/18/2016

As the war against Isis intensifies and Syrian troops retake Palmyra, here in the UK the battle to stop the terrorist group cashing in on looted antiquities is being waged on the streets of the capital and beyond. Dispatches investigates how easy it is for terrorists to exploit this trade. Investigative journalist Simon Cox has been tracking the antiquities business in Britain for the last eight months. Together with a group of leading archaeologists, Cox has gone undercover to investigate this lucrative business and test the rules designed to regulate it. He finds a world of dubious provenance and questionable deals in the heart of London and on the Internet. He also looks at what Isis is doing to World Heritage Sites in territory it holds. How much are the two be linked? Cox examines how much of what is looted might be being sold in the UK, and what the authorities are doing to stop it.

#12 - 999: Where's My Ambulance?

Season 2016 - Episode 3 - Aired 2/15/2016

Morland Sanders investigates the increasing demand on the ambulance service and how response times are calculated.

#13 - The Secret Plan to Save Fat Britain

Season 2016 - Episode 26 - Aired 10/31/2016

Britain's men are the fattest in Europe, our women are the second fattest, and our children are getting fatter younger. So why has Downing Street diluted its obesity strategy? Dispatches investigates.

#14 - The Battle for the Labour Party

Season 2016 - Episode 21 - Aired 9/19/2016

Antony Barnett investigates the Labour Party, just days before the declaration of whether Jeremy Corbyn has retained his leadership.

#15 - The World According to President Trump

Season 2016 - Episode 28 - Aired 11/12/2016

What will a President Trump really do? Will he really ban all Muslims? Build a wall? Pal up to Putin? Smash Isis? How scared should we be? Will he back down from his campaign pledges? In this special film, Matt Frei speaks to those who know and attempts to get to the bottom of Trump’s policies and future agenda as President of the United States.

#16 - Addicted to Spending

Season 2016 - Episode 25 - Aired 10/24/2016

With personal debt at an all-time high, Morland Sanders asks if more could be done to help families kick the spending addiction

#17 - Britain's Aborton Extremists

Season 2016 - Episode 22 - Aired 10/5/2016

Dispatches investigates the anti-abortion movement in the UK.

#18 - The Great Housing Scandal

Season 2016 - Episode 20 - Aired 8/15/2016

Harry Wallop investigates the failure to build enough affordable homes in the UK, finding out what happened to a much-heralded government plan to sell off enough public land to build 100,000 new homes. He learns of deals done with big developers at a potential loss to the taxpayer and discovers large areas of sold-off land sitting empty, while millions of people can't find an affordable home to buy.

#19 - Brexit: Who'll Do Your Job Now?

Season 2016 - Episode 19 - Aired 8/1/2016

#20 - How School Bosses Spend Your Millions

Season 2016 - Episode 17 - Aired 7/25/2016

Billions of pounds of taxpayers' money go into the academy school system. Dispatches investigates the finances of academies, and discovers big salaries and generous expenses.

#21 - Is Your Pension Safe?

Season 2016 - Episode 16 - Aired 7/18/2016

Reporter Shaunagh Connaire investigates what is happening to Britain’s pensions amidst all the market turmoil.

#22 - Racist Britain

Season 2016 - Episode 15 - Aired 7/11/2016

Since the recent European referendum in Britain, racist abuse seems to be on the rise. Seyi Rhodes investigates, uncovering many dramatic recordings of examples of these verbal and physical xenophobic attacks.

#23 - Are You Owed a Pay Rise?

Season 2016 - Episode 14 - Aired 7/4/2016

Dispatches investigates the reality of the impact of the new National Living Wage (NLW) on low-income employees – revealing that some of Britain’s biggest companies, including Tesco and B&Q, are cutting perks and privileges for the low-paid at the same as introducing the National Living Wage. And the programme asks how low wages and job insecurity affected the EU referendum result.

#24 - Undercover: Inside Britain's Children's Services

Season 2016 - Episode 13 - Aired 5/26/2016

A Dispatches investigation into Birmingham City Council's Children's Services, which in 2013 was described by Ofsted's Chief Inspector as a national disgrace and has faced 27 serious case reviews over the last 10 years. The programme sent an experienced social worker into the department, where she found a troubling picture of chaos, low staff morale and confused decision-making on how to handle serious cases where children could be at risk.

#25 - The Great Benefits Row

Season 2016 - Episode 10 - Aired 4/11/2016

The row over cuts to welfare benefits has rocked the Government to its core. Iain Duncan Smith resigned, attacking his own department's plans to cut disability benefits as balancing the books on the back of the poor and vulnerable. George Osborne has backed down; the cuts have now been put on ice. But the new benefit that prompted the row - Personal Independence Payment - is still going ahead. Hundreds of thousands of disabled people are now having to apply for this new benefit and many claim it is deeply unfair. Former Paralympian Ade Adepitan investigates and, using secretly recorded material, reveals some disturbing sides to the new benefit.