The show was highly controversial; Channel 4, the police, and the media regulator Ofcom received hundreds of complaints, and there were death threats made against the residents of the street on Twitter.

In 2012, Love Productions approached the BBC with the idea for a programme that would feature a prominent member of the business community working with unemployed people, but the show did not come to fruition after the unnamed individual had to withdraw from it because of other commitments.

[1] Writing in The Observer in January 2014, Nick Mirsky, head of documentaries at Channel 4, said that Love Productions intentionally selected an area where a high proportion of the residents were in receipt of welfare payments "to show the effect of benefit cuts on a community for whom they were the principal source of income".

[3] Both Mirsky, and Ralph Lee, Channel 4's head of factual programming, said the residents of James Turner Street were consulted about the series before filming began.

[4] The comedian Frank Skinner, who is from the West Midlands, was approached to narrate the documentary but turned it down because he had concerns about how people from Birmingham would be portrayed, and did not wish to criticise the city.

[9] During the week following the broadcasting of the third episode, West Midlands Police charged several James Turner Street residents with drugs-related offences in connection with a raid their officers had carried out in June 2013.

[10][11] On 23 January, the Birmingham Mail reported that items of Benefits Street branded merchandise, such as mugs and T-shirts, were being produced for sale over the internet by individuals wishing to cash in on the programme.

[14][17][18] However, the Birmingham historian Carl Chinn believes the street was named for a local businessman and partner in the firm Hammond, Turner & Sons, a manufacturer of buttons.

[19] Of Winson Green, Chinn writes that it was originally developed as a "better-off working class district", but that by the latter part of the 20th century many of the properties in the area were falling into decay.

[20] Clare Short, who grew up in the area and represented Winson Green as Member of Parliament for Ladywood for 27 years, has said that along with high unemployment came a "new culture of drugs, crime and mental health problems.

Speaking in the House of Commons on 13 January, Iain Duncan Smith, the Conservative Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, suggested the programme justified the changes being made by the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government's Welfare Reform Act.

[33] The following week, Duncan Smith gave a speech to mark the tenth anniversary of his Centre for Social Justice in which he said that areas of the country were being ghettoised by long-term unemployment and had remained largely hidden from the rest of society.

[37] After declining an invitation to visit James Turner Street, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats, said that he believed both left- and right-wing arguments on welfare were wrong.

[12] Writing for the Wiltshire Gazette and Herald, the Liberal Democrat MP Duncan Hames argued that the programme would contribute little to the subject: "We do need to have a rational, informed debate about how to improve our welfare system, but the editorial line taken by supposedly factual ‘reality TV’ adds very little to that.

"[40] In the Radio Times, Clare Short, who represented the constituency prior to Mahmood, said the series was "totally unrepresentative" of the area, and condemned it as "crummy and misleading".

Channel 4 announced on 16 January that this would be chaired by presenter Richard Bacon and feature a panel of guests who "represent the views across the political spectrum – and crucially those who claim benefits".

[52] Panelists for the programme were announced shortly before it aired, and included some Benefits Street participants, as well as Mike Penning, a minister from the Department for Work and Pensions, Chris Bryant from the opposition, Daily Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson, political editor of The Huffington Post Mehdi Hasan, and John Bird.

"[54] This view was echoed by Neil Midgley of The Telegraph, who felt that both follow-up programmes "didn't live up to [the] standards" of the series, and that the debate had "sparked a lot of shouting and tumult, but very little new wisdom".

[55] The Independent's Daisy Wyatt said the programme had "proved as rambling and unfocused as the documentary that sparked the hour-long studio show, with 'neutral' host Richard Bacon veering across topics and adding his own opinions Jeremy Kyle-style.

Presented by Matthew Wright, the show featured a panel of guests made up of Conservative MP Edwina Currie, reality television star Katie Hopkins, former London Mayor Ken Livingstone, broadcaster Terry Christian, former model Annabel Giles, and two people associated with James Turner Street—charity campaigner Rev.

[63] The Independent's Jess Denham felt that Hopkins's "larger-than-life personality" had dominated proceedings, while "fact-based arguments were lost to the non-stop barrage of immature tempers".

[70] The watchdog looked at a number of issues raised by viewers, including concerns that rules governing child welfare had been broken, and that the programme featured "certain criminal techniques".

[70] However, Ofcom concluded that Benefits Street had reflected the real lives of the children taking part, and Channel 4 had taken care to limit the amount of time they were seen on screen.

[70][71] Following the first episode of Benefits Street, West Midlands Police said they had received a number of complaints from members of the public about alleged criminal activities that had been filmed, which they were considering whether to investigate.

[76] Shortly afterwards, he submitted a letter to the watchdog alleging that children had been subject to public harassment because of the programme, and that Ofcom's rules regarding the welfare of those under the age of majority had been breached.

[85] The boss of Love Productions, Richard McKerrow, also defended the series, saying it was not about "demonising the poor...It’s a very honest and true portrayal of life in Britain and people are frightened of it.

In response, a Channel 4 spokeswoman said that consent from parents and guardians, and the children themselves was obtained before filming began "in accordance with the relevant sections of the Ofcom broadcasting code.

[102] In the same article, Kieran Smith, Executive Producer of Love Productions, conceded that the controversy surrounding the series had made it more difficult to find locations for future programmes, but hoped "to settle on somewhere soon".

Simon Letts of Southampton City Council expressed concerns the programme could lead to racial tension, while the area's Member of Parliament, Alan Whitehead, suggested it "would follow a set script as opposed to accurately portraying reality".

[111] Love Productions also announced plans for Famous, Rich and Hungry, a two-part documentary for the BBC's Sport Relief that would see celebrities spending time with families experiencing food poverty in order to explore the issue.