Going up, going down: The end of the of the football season in newspaper front pages

Nobody covers a football club quite like the local newspaper. The highs and the lows, the frustrations and the delights (with the sports desk normally being blamed for the former by readers, but rarely thanked for the latter). So it’s no surprise that when the not-quite-life-and-death matters of promotion and relegation are dealt with, the football normally passes from the back page to the front page.

With the last play off in the bag (well done Crewe), here’s a round-up of how regional papers covered the success, or otherwise, of their teams

Premier League

Champions: Manchester City

Title: Manchester Evening News

Manchester Evening News

Premier League

18th place (relegated): Bolton

Title: Bolton News

Praying for a miracle before the game … The Bolton News

and after…

… and after relegation was confirmed

Premier League

19th place (relegated): Blackburn

Title: Lancashire Telegraph

The Lancashire Telegraph

Premier League

20th place (relegated): Wolves

Titles: Birmingham Mail and the Wolverhampton Express and Star

The Black Country edition of the Birmingham Mail

 

And the Express and Star

FOI Friday: Speaking clocks, hospital parking fines, gagging orders and snooping on council staff

1. Court cases dropped for ‘not being in the public interest’

Some fascinating numbers reported in the London Evening Standard as a result of an FOI request to the Crown Prosecution Service, which was asked to reveal how many prosecutions in London were dropped ‘because they were no longer in the public interest’ – often on cost grounds. More than 20,000 cases were dropped in London, a rise on previous years, with critics saying costs are increasingly a factor. One which could run and run elsewhere?

2. Another case of the cost of the obese

FOI requests asking hospitals about what they’ve spent on equipment to deal with obese people are nothing new – but asking the ambulance service could bring in some interesting results, as this story on the Daily Post in North Wales proves.

3. Parking fines. Only new

Here’s a new take on the parking tickets FOI. We’ve all done FOIs about the how much hospitals make from parking charges, but how many parking tickets do they issue? In Aberdeen, it’s around 2000 fines a year. A nice sideline if ever there was one?

FOI Friday: Swine flu deaths, speeding points, paper cuts in hospital and fuel prices

The board of the North West Strategic Health Authority, according to its website. The authority's record on FOI and freedom of information is quite sickly

So, how many people did die of swine flu?

For reasons known only to itself – although the fact it keeps being named and shamed by the Information Commissioner for its poor record on FOI might be a clue – the North West Strategic Health Authority banned hospital trusts from giving out figures on swine flu deaths in January.

So the Manchester Evening News turned to FOI to get the true figures. Now it can reveal the number who died in Manchester, and it’s twice as high as originally reported. The SHA’s attitude is little short of shameful, and its original excuse for imposing the ban – because there was no guarantee the figures were accurate – is simply laughable.

Domestic violence at a hyperlocal level

A good example of how low police can go when asked to provide statistics. The Hinckley Times reports not only how many incidents of domestic violence there were in its area, but also how many there were in each police patrol area too.

The Times also married up these police patrol areas to the local council wards they covered, thus making it easier for readers to understand the numbers against areas they were more likely to know.

It Asda be a crime hotspot

The Yorkshire Post reports on an FOI request which revealed that Asda in Harrogate was the place where more crimes were reported than anywhere else in North Yorkshire. Asda disputes the figures, arguing that the numbers include incidents around the store, not just in it. The fact that a sexual assault took place on its car park a week later doesn’t help that argument.

FOI Friday: Posh cars, charity cuts, ambulance waits and smoking fines

1. The cuts, they hurt 

Good stuff from the Lancashire Telegraph as it set out to find where the cuts are falling at local councils, and who is suffering. For this FOI, it zoomed in on the amount being given out in grants to community groups and charities. No surprise, they’ve been cut. But the level of the cuts – some £3million – show charities are really suffering.

2. Spending on luxury cars

I sometimes wince a bit at stories which reveal how much is spent on luxury cars for public sector bosses. For example, if a police chief constable has a nice car, should we be offended? Probably not. But the Sunday Sun’s revelation that £500,000 a year is spent on cars for senior managers in the NHS in the north east could be seen as a good representation of spending which should be reviewed:

Audi TTs, Mercedes, Jaguar X types, trendy Nissan Qashqais and top of the range BMWs are among the 165 cars being leased to health leaders across the North’s health trusts

We used the Freedom of Information Act to ask eight health trusts how much they’ve spent on leasing cars to trust board members, senior managers and top nursing staff earning more than £54,000 – and a whopping £641,187 has been spent between them.

3. Serious untoward incidents on the rise

I’ve written a lot about ‘serious untoward incidents’ at hospitals, which many journalists have been using FOI to find out about. But this story from the Shropshire Star is worth mention because it not only reveals the sorts of incidents, but also breaks them down by year. The worry here is that the number of cases are going up – a sign of a stretched NHS?

#walsall24: How a council overcame the ‘no-one understands what we do’ dilemma

Just a quick mention for #walsall24, a 24-hour tweeting project from Walsall Council.

A bit like Greater Manchester Police’s tweetathon last year, the 24 hour tweeting operation from Walsall Council aimed to show people just what the council does.

Unlike the GMP live tweet, Walsall Council appears to have encouraged staff to use their own Twitter accounts to send updates, using the hashtag of #walsall24. This removes the risk of one account being suspended for issuing too many tweets at one time.

The array of things the council deals with during the course of 24 hours is fascinating, and the tweets can be viewed on the Express and Star site’s widget here.

One of the complaints I’ve often heard from council officers is that the complaining public ‘don’t realise everything we do.’

That’s certainly probably the case when it comes to discussing council cuts – the impact is likely to be felt in places way beyond what most people would consider the reach of councils.

As it is, it’s good to see  a council do something to act on the complaint that the public don’t know what they do – so hats off to Walsall for doing this so well.

A Storify wrap of key tweets from the day has been put together by Sarah Hartley of The Guardian. It makes the point that some have asked just how many people in Walsall will have seen the tweets.

To me, that’s where the mainstream media comes into its own. As with GMP’s 24-hour tweetathon, while those of us on Twitter will have watched it live, many more will have seen it through the coverage of the Manchester Evening News and the BBC. If the council can provide the material, then the media should be able to do a lot with it.

20 FOI ideas to kick off 2011

There has been a spike in traffic coming to my blog this week using the search term ‘FOI ideas.’ Quiet first week back at the office maybe? So, here are 20 FOI ideas to kick off 2011, in no particular order. Happy new year!

1. Call outs to pubs and clubs

Which pubs and clubs have received the most calls from police? The Wilsmlow Express was able to name the venues in its area via FOI. A bit of a health warning should come with this FOI. A friend of mine runs a bar in a Lancashire town. His local paper ran a similar FOI and his bar came near to the top for call outs, but he says the figures included incidents where the venue was used as a landmark – eg an assault outside the bar. In some respects, this shouldn’t change the FOI  because it’s the perception of danger which will matter to the reader. (Source: Wilmslow Express)

2. Political Assistants

Councils up and down the country spend money on employing tax payer-funded political assistants for the main political parties. Good value for money? The Swindon Advertiser found it cost £80,000 a year in Swindon. (Source: Swindon Advertiser)

3. Taken to court for unpaid council tax

A good indicator of how the recession is impacting on people is getting hold of the number of people councils are taking to court for non payment of council tax. In Scotland, the figure is 350 A DAY. (Source: The Scotsman)

FOI Friday (On a Tuesday?): Knives in court, World Cup bid costs and councillor pay rises

I didn’t get round to writing this on Friday – so it’s late. But hopefully, still worthwhile…

1. Seized at the court doors

Where’s the one place you might not expect crime to be committed? We’ve already established that police stations are prone to crime, but what about courts? The Lancashire Evening Post used FOI to find out how many knives were found on people going into courts in Lancashire – more than 200.

2. Things that go bump in the night

The Cambridge News reports on an FOI request which reveals the number of reports made to the police about ghostly sightings. Twelve reports have been made in the last two years, with details of each case reported.

3. Cost of the World Cup bid to councils

With the World Cup bid now little more than a wrecked dream, the Birmingham Mail has been quick to find out how much it cost local councils, given that Birmingham was battling to be a host city. Birmingham spent £350,000 – news which will no doubt cheer the 7,000 council staff currently facing the axe.

FOI Friday: 10 things we’ve learnt this week thanks to the Freedom of Information Act

Complaints about food

We start this week with one of those FOI stories which will have the anti-FOI brigade sucking their teeth as saying ‘What a waste of money.’ The Mail on Sunday reported on complaints made by MPs to the Commons catering department. One went so far as to say the menu depicted a Sunday roast with three slices of beef, but s/he only got two. Another complained about the fact HP sauce had been substituted for something else. This FOI can surely be applied all over the place – councils, hospitals etc?

Value of regional development agencies

With question marks hanging over the future of regional development agencies, the Wolverhampton Express and Star comes up with a good story from FOI. It sought the results of a much-publicised £5million project rub by Advantage West Midlands which aimed to help graduates get job. Only one in five who took part got jobs as a result. Value for money?

Low attended university courses

The Carlisle News and Star found out, using FOI, that 34 courses run by the University of Cumbria had fewer than 10 people on them – raising questions about value for money at an establishment which is heavily in debt.

FOI Friday: 10 things we’ve learnt this week thanks to the Freedom of Information Act

Accessing petitions

Here’s an unusual one to kick us off this week, submitted not by a newspaper or journalist, but by a political party. I try and steer clear of political FOIs because they are, by their nature, one-sided, but it’s the information Labour got that interests me here. Not numbers or stats, but a copy of a petition sent to the Christie Hospital in Manchester in 2005. Labour wanted it because it was a petition organised by the Lib Dems in 2005 to campaign against the closure of The Christie, something Labour said was never on the cards anyway. What did Labour want with the petition? To write to all those who signed it – revenge on the Lib Dems, five years on. Data breach somewhere? Presumably not, because it’s a public document. Could it be a way for journalists to get information?

Pothole problems

Everyone loves to grumble about potholes, and councils will often say the problem is not what complainers make it out to be – so the Express and Echo in Exeter asked the local council how much they were paying out in compo to people who said their cars had been damaged by potholes. Turns out they’re shelling out three times as much as they were three years ago.

Kitchen problems at hospitals

A variant on the pest control FOIs here – the Express and Echo in Exeter  (again!) asked the local council for copies of the kitchen hygiene reports from the local hospital – and it turned out there had been cases where  food wasn’t being stored at the right temperature.

FOI Friday: 10 things we’ve learnt this week thanks to Freedom of Information

1. Snakes in a school

I mentioned on here before Christmas about an FOI request made by the Dundee Courier for pest control reports involving local hospitals. A different take on that FOI comes from a local Labour councillor who, the BBC reports, asked for the pest control reports involving local schools. The council replied with details of call outs to deal with bats, pigeons – and snakes.

2. How many new potholes?

Potholes became big news last month when the bad weather hit the area, but how bad was the problem? The Lincolnshire Echo asked the county council for the number of new pothole reports it had received last month – and the answer was 715. That compares to 1,300 for the whole of last winter.

3. The impact of the Baby P case

A interesting use of FOI to marry up a national story with a local issue. The Southport Visiter reports on a 60% increase in the number of children Sefton Council has taken into care following the national storm triggered by the death of Baby P.

4. Learning from the letters page

Who says you can’t learn stuff on the letters page? In the Times, Dr Rod Storring and Dr David Dighton added their take to the Mid Staffordshire Hospital crisis, by referring to their own analysis of the Care Quality Commission’s annual staff satisfaction survey. One of the questions is: “Am I able to deliver the patient care I aspire to”. Response levels were poor in Mid Staffordshire – is it one which could be revealing across the country too? Proof of positive success with FOI if you have a good working knowledge of what information hidden government bodies hold.

5. Spin, or good health?

The Express and Star had another angle in the Staffordshire Hospital row – finding out how much the hospital had spent on ‘spin’ during the three years in which people weren’t receiving the care they should have done.

The NHS Trust running Stafford Hospital spent £628,000 on boosting its image in a three-year-period when it was embroiled in a scandal over dismal standards of care.

Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, which also runs Cannock Hospital, spent the cash on public relations and marketing over the last three financial years.

Over the same time period that Stafford Hospital is accused of causing between 400 and 1,200 avoidable deaths – partly due to poor staffing levels – its parent trust spent tens of thousands of pounds on a PR agency in addition to spending more than £30,000 a year on its own internal press office.

Spending on PR agencies ballooned from £51,000 in 2006/07 to £107,000 in 2008/09. Thousands more was spent on advertisements and “marketing management costs”.

The total PR spend is equal to the cost of around ten full-time nurses every year.

6. Allotments crisis

One of those regular stories from the recession has been the growing number of people turning to ‘The Good Life’ to make ends meet. But it’s not that simple in Camden, where the waiting list for an allotment stands at 983, an FOI request reported in the Willesden and Brent Times reports.  That equate to a wait of roughly 50 years.

7. Law-breaking coppers

The Sunday Sun in Newcastle reveals the crimes coppers have been committing in the region thanks to FOI. Drug dealing, drink driving, sexual assault and even death by dangerous driving are among the offences they committed – with 23 officers resigning on the spot.

8. Accidents at a city council

Birmingham City Council has big money problems at the moment, with thousands of jobs at risk. The Sunday Mercury added a new dimension to the debate by finding out how much had been spent on compensation claims for staff resulting from workplace injuries.

It has forked out £2.6 million in the last five years on accident at work claims, including £300,000 to an employee who suffered post traumatic stress following an undisclosed incident.

Two others collectively billed the council for almost £300,000 after exposure to asbestos led to them contracting mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer.

9. Empowered Council workers

Using an FOI request submitted by Big Brother Watch, the Glamorgan Gazette reports that more than 100 council officers have the right to enter homes without a warrant or police escort, a figure which is much higher than in nearby larger authorities.

10. And a returning favourite: Parking hotspots

The Flintshire Chronicle makes good use of one of the most well-known FOIs -  getting the top 20 parking tickets  hotspots in the Flintshire area. It’s one worth turning to time and time again, as it provides instant useful information for readers.