Tagged: Lincolnshire Echo
When marine roadkill becomes a picture story
Anyone who has worked on a newsdesk for any length of time knows the value of an animal picture story. The cuter the better, and even better if there is a bit of a sob story to go with it.
I think the Lincolnshire Echo might have missed the point with this picture story though. I have nothing against porpoises appearing in newspapers, but I imagine most readers who prefer them to be a) alive and b) most definitely not mangled and bloody.
What next? Readers UGC pictures from their best roadkill?
Bloody hell! Not the sort of animal picture story most of us would have in mind.
FOI FRIDAY: Fuel-lish mistakes, expensive art, mid-air near misses and making money out of schools
1. Silly FuelsKicking off in the North East this week with a great example of multiple FOIs coming together for one story. The Sunday Sun put FOIs in to all sorts of authorities – police, council, ambulance service and so on – to find out how many cases of the wrong fuel being put in vehicles had been reported. The answer: 285. The cost: £48,000 to fix. (There is a What Do You Know FOI round robin on this here)
The Express and Echo in Exeter demonstrated how digging into spending from previous years can provide good stories with this one about how £279k was spent on abstract art for the HQ of the Met Office over the last decade. As the cuts begin to bite, there are probably many more stories like this – hospitals being a prime example.
3. Even paper-rounds are in short supply
We all know jobs are hard to come by at the moment, but here’s a different line to pursue thanks to the Lincolnshire Echo. It tapped into the fact that employers wishing to employing under-16s have to apply for a licence from the council to do so, and that the number of licences being applied for has declined in recent years by more than 1,000. Proof of fewer jobs?
FOI Friday: 10 things we’ve learnt this week thanks to the Freedom of Information Act
At a time when budgets are being slashed, spending at local authorities will come under greater scrutiny than ever. FOI is a powerful tool in this respect, as the Press and Journal in Aberdeen showed this week when it revealed how one council had spent £400,000 on more than 100 trips abroad.
2. The impact of winter vomiting
Yes, on the hottest week of the year, the Herald Express in Devon gets details, via FOI, on how many days over the past five years hospital wards have been shut by winter vomiting. 700 days in total – more than two years.
An interesting take on the impact of the recession is revealed by the Nidderdale Herald this week – a rise in the number of pauper’s funerals taking place in the area.
FOI FRIDAY: 10 things we’ve learnt this week thanks to the Freedom of Information Act
1. Delayed or cancelled operations
The Deadline News Agency in Scotland reports on an FOI request by Jackie Baillie, the shadow health minister north of the Border, which lifted the lift on the number of operations being called off each week in the country.
Levels of spending on lessons for prisoners are falling in Wales – so says the Western Mail, using figures released under FOI. The amount spent on classes has fallen 7%.
3. Lives lost needlessly at hospital
The Swindon Advertiser used FOI legislation to ask how many Serious or Untoward Incidents were reported at the local hospital over the last 16 months. The findings revealed that there were 35 such cases, nine of which resulted in the death of patients.
FOI Friday: 10 things we’ve learnt this week thanks to the Freedom of Information Act
When Birmingham City Council announced that six social workers involved in the case of Khyra Ishaq – the little girl who starved to death in her own home despite being known to social services – that several of the social workers involved had been sacked, it perhaps hoped it was the end of the story. What it failed to mention was that the six sacked had been referred to the General Social Care Council for investigation too, with another three still employed by the council also under investigation by the GSCC too. This was reported by the Birmingham Mail this morning after an FOI request submitted by a member of the public via Whatdotheyknow. This demonstrates the power of FOI when used by the public, especially by people who have a knowledge of the workings of an organisation which rivals that of those running the organisation.
Uncovering information from the National Archives
Information sought by a local history society handed the North Wales Daily Post with an interesting tale about how local tunnels had been lined up to store the country’s gold should the Russians invade. Lots of places have urban legends about how their area would have been affected if an invasion took place – the one in Chorley, where I first worked, involved secret train tracks under the Pennines – and maybe putting an FOI into the National Archives is one way to find out if it was true.
Complaints to the Environment Agency
An interesting one for anyone who is covering an ongoing story involving the Environment Agency. The Yorkshire Evening Post reports on an FOI request by a local councillor who asked how many complaints about bad smells had been made to the Environment Agency about a local farm – the answer was 450. Sadly, the EA hasn’t taken any action which has solved the problem yet.
FOI Friday: 10 things we’ve learnt this week thanks to the Freedom of Information Act
With drugs and young people back in the news with a vengeance as a result of recent stories about ‘miaow miaow’, The Hackney Post timed its FOI about the number of young people – people under 17 – caught in possession of drugs in recent years in the borough.
The number of 13-17 year-olds caught with drugs in the borough has risen sharply from none at all in 2005 to a peak of 208 in 2008, according to information obtained by The Hackney Post under the Freedom of Information Act 2001 – although police adit the figures only “skim the surface” of Hackney’s teenage drug problem.
Over 650 Hackney teenagers were arrested between 2005 and 2010 for drug possession, which includes 30 arrested for drug supply offences. The drugs in circulation were cocaine, crack, cannabis, crystal meth, heroin, ketamine, MDMA (ecstasy) and steroids.
The Croydon Advertiser uncovers one of the unreported dangers of being a paramedic – crashes. According to the FOI request the paper put in, just shy of 60 ambulance accidents were reported last year, with the ambulance service to blame for just four – which suggests that ambulances aren’t getting the respect paramedics have come to expect.
A different take on the whole supersized Britain issue, as the Wigan Evening Post asked the local hospital trust how much it had spent on oversized beds for its larger patients.
FOI Friday: 10 things we’ve learnt this week thanks to the Freedom of Information Act
1. Anti-social behaviour in the library
There was a time when it was the contents of some books which caused most offence in libraries. Apparently that’s not the case now in Lincolnshire, when indecent exposure, public urination
The Southport Visiter reports on the number of dog attacks in Southport – based on figures it got from the local hospital for the last three years. 1000 dog-related injuries in three years seems a worrying trend for an area like Southport.
Did you know FOI could be used to find out some details about botched operations? It seems it can – and this story from the Ipswich Star appears to be proof of that. It oroved a story about a testicle operation resulting in a man becoming infertile using FOI. An open door to finding out how many operations go wrong?
FOI Friday: 10 things we’ve learnt this week thanks to Freedom of Information
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
FOI Friday: 10 things we’ve learnt this week thanks to the Freedom of Information Act
Forget cash in the attic – there’s stuff worth real money being tucked away by local councils in the North East. The Northern Echo reports that councils in the region own £75million worth of art – much of it tucked away in storage. At a time when costs are being cut, this FOI has shone a light onto a potentially rich source of income and debate. Perhaps worringly, one council, Northumberland, doesn’t know how much its art is worth.
The Nottingham Evening Post has discovered how many police officers are currently under investigation, and for what, after putting in an FOI:
SIX Notts police officers, one Special Constable and eight police staff were suspended from duty up to December 31 last year, according to new figures released to Notts Police Authority’s professional standards committee.
Four of the police officers have been suspended for between three and six months, one between six and 12 months, and one over a year.
One member of police staff has been suspended for over a year.
A further 11 police officers are on restricted duties pending possible suspensions or the completion of a disciplinary investigation.
An Freedom of Information Act application by the Post revealed four of the police officer suspensions are connected to “Honesty and Integrity” issues, two are over “Discreditable Conduct” and one is about allegedly failing to fulfil “Duties and Responsibilities”.
What’s been smuggled into prisons?
HOMEMADE grappling hooks for ambitious escape attempts and weapons made out of toothbrushes and cutlery are among a soaring number of dangerous items confiscated from Lothian prisoners.It was revealed today that an average of one weapon is seized in either Saughton or Addiewell prisons every two days, and there has been an increase in the number of drug finds and mobile phones confiscated from inmates.
FOI Friday: 10 things we discovered thanks to Freedom of Information this week
Compensation to prisoners, use of tasers in Cambridgeshire, probation breaches in Bedfordshire and the criminal record of a football legend. FOI Friday has a distinct criminal theme this week…
Compensation paid to prisoners
The Lincolnshire Echo published details of compensation payouts to to prisoners at jails in its area. A total of £16,365 has been spent in the last two years on compensation at the county’s three prisons – HMP Lincoln, Morton Hall, near Swinderby, and North Sea Camp, near Boston. A total of £4,500 of that was paid out for injuries sustained by inmates. A further £3,400 had to be forked out because of unlawful detention – such as prisoners being kept in the cells for longer than required.
My image of Cambridgeshire is of pretty little towns like Stamford, and the university city of Cambridge. Admittedly, I did cover an attempted murder of a man whose wife had hired a hitman, only to find out he was cop, in Cambridge once. But they were from Lancashire, which kind of explained it in part. Anyway, the Cambridge News used FOI to find out how often tasers had been used “to resolve dangerous situations”. The answer was 500. Shocking?
Was the Wizard of Dribble a coffee crook?
The John Terry scandal this is not, but using the Freedom of Information Act to gain information on legendary football Sir Stanley Matthews came up trumps for someone, reports the Daily Mail. The MoD released “secret” files – which presumably wouldn’t be available if Matthews was still alive today – and fellow player Stan Mortensen was arrested for trying to sell contraband coffee and soap during the Second World War whilst playing an international match in Belgium. Not a big story by any stretch, but an interesting precedent perhaps?
