Tagged: South Wales Evening Post
FOI Friday: Bad living conditions, school repair backlogs, teen drug dealers and the return of schoolyard compo
Revealing the findings of ‘neighbourhood renewal assessments’ – Stoke Sentinel
Here’s one which could run and run across the country. The Stoke Sentinel reports on the findings of a council ‘neighbourhood renewal assessment’ – the likes of which are carried out by councils all over the place.
A NEW report has painted a sobering picture of just how bad living conditions have become in the Portland Street area.
The report, released under the Freedom of Information Act, shows how much conditions have deteriorated at some of the houses.
It is based on surveys carried out at 274 properties, a mixture of private rented and owner-occupied homes, as part of the council’s Neighbourhood Renewal Assessment.
Repairs backlogs at schools – Coventry Telegraph
WARWICKSHIRE schools have a staggering £83 million backlog of repairs.
Warwickshire County Council bosses estimated the cost of getting all the county’s schools up to a reasonable standard of repair.
The figures were uncovered by the Telegraph under the Freedom of Information Act.
The cost of clearing up after police warrants – South Wales Evening Post
I think there’s a better story in here other than the one the South Wales Evening Post has gone with. It reports on the £5k in compensation the police has paid out for repairs to properties which were damaged during ‘negative warrants’ – ie warrants which were executed but didn’t lead to an arrest or seizure of goods. That’s a good story – but looking at the breakdown of negative v positive warrants, almost half were negative. A better story?
120 ‘foreign objects’ removed from patients in Lincolnshire – Boston Standard
Here’s a curious story. FOI led to the Boston Standard to find out that 120 people had ‘foreign bodies’ removed from them in hospital, yet the hospital couldn’t say what those objects were. The Standard used information from elsewhere in the country to talk about the sorts of objects which could be involved.
Teenage drug dealers – Teesside Evening Gazette
SUSPECTED child drug dealers as young as 15 were among those arrested on Teesside, new figures have revealed.
Officers from Cleveland Police arrested 17 suspected child drug dealers last year.
Five were girls held over claims they were dealing cannabis, and six of the boys, including two 15-year-olds, were risking lengthy prison sentences after allegedly dealing in Class A drugs.
The findings were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
Escapes from mental health units – Wigan Evening Post
10% of people admitted to mental health units in Wigan escape, according to the Wigan Evening Post.
Cost of overseas patients not paying up – Scarborough Evening News
This story stands out more because of the level of detail released than anything else:
SCARBOROUGH’S NHS Trust is owed more than £30,000 in hospital bills, racked up by overseas patients not entitled to free treatment.
The figures, obtained via a Freedom of Information request to Scarborough and North East Yorkshire Healthcare NHS Trust, show that since February 2009, £33,229.41 has either been written off or is currently being chased by the Trust.
The numbers include £10,297 that the trust is still chasing from a Syrian patient who underwent treatment in May 2010.
The highest amount written off was for £5,701, owed to them from a Thai patient who underwent treatment in August and September of 2009.
The books and CDs you aren’t borrowing from the library – Sunday Sun
Tomes such as Old Scottish Clockmakers 1453-1850 and Agrarian History of England and Wales Volume 5 have lined library shelves untouched for decades.
But surprisingly some popular names were also on our list, compiled from Freedom of Information requests by the Sunday Sun.
When it comes to music, in Northumberland, four copies of Coldplay’s album X&Y were only borrowed once last year, the same number as The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine.
The return of an old favourite: Schoolyard payouts – Leicester Mercury
A schoolgirl who was burnt when baked beans were spilled on her could be in line for a council pay-out of up to £12,000.
The hot food was spilled on the youngster’s neck at a county council-run school. The authority has now set aside thousands of pounds to cover potential compensation and legal costs.
The incident is one of 63 compensation claims made for injuries sustained at county schools during the past four years, according to new figures. But, of the 29 cases dealt with to date, just five have resulted in a compensation pay-out.
The cost of council sick pay – Birmingham Post
Birmingham City Council spent £35 million on sick pay for staff last year.
And new figures have revealed employees in some departments are taking more than double the national average of days off ill.
The authority spent £34,856,713 on sick pay between January and December last year, according to figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
The council did not reveal the bill for paying agency staff to cover absences, meaning the total cost will be even higher.
Gallery: How the newspapers which knew Gary Speed best covered his death
The death of Gary Speed was one of those news stories which, when read first on Twitter, always makes me think: “I need to see that several more times from people I trust before I believe it.” Confirmation followed soon after.
As is increasingly the case on social networks, the actual news was soon superceded by speculation about what happened, while broadcast news and news websites kept – largely – to the facts and went heavily on tributes.
But Monday morning brought another aspect to the coverage – content from some of the journalists who knew him best – regional journalists who covered the clubs he played for and, latterly, managed.
As I tend to do from time to time on this blog, here’s a round-up of the front page from the areas with the closest connection to Speed the player and Speed the manager:
FOI Friday: Council bosses and their expenses, dirty hospitals, police spying on neighbours and the problems with paracetamol
The front page of the East Anglian Daily Times
I wonder if Andrea Hall, the chief executive of Suffolk County Council, agrees with Tony Blair that FOI was a big mistake. Thanks to FOI, we already know £12,000 was spenting on coaching sessions for her, not to mention the essential spending on posh profile pictures of her. In its latest FOI about the chief executive, the EADT reports on how the council paid for her to spend nights in posh Suffolk hotels on three occasions.
It turns out that the nights, which she claimed back on expenses until she was told she shouldn’t, were deemed necessary because she had early meetings the next day or dinners on the night of the stays – something which wouldn’t be such a problem if she lived close to work, or indeed in the same county. A good example of how FOI combined with other knowledge can take a story a long way.
But it also reveals another opportunity: What are council big wigs putting on their expenses?
It’s fair to assume that a hospital kitchen would convene with food hygiene standards. But not in parts of South Wales, where the South Wales Evening Post discovered that Morriston Hospital had just one star out of a possible five. The paper then sought to find out why the rating was so low – FOI led to the release of the inspection reports, which make grim reading.
3. Police spying on neighbours
The Lancashire Telegraph revealed how several police officers have been disciplined for using police computers – and the databases they hold – to run searches on neighbours, family and the local area:
In one allegation, which is currently being investigated by the Professional Standards Department, a PC in eastern division covering Blackburn with Darwen, Hyndburn and the Ribble Valley, misused the Sleuth system to run criminal checks on neighbours and schools near his home.
A Pennine PC covering Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale was given a written warning for conducting 53 Sleuth searches without an ‘obvious policing purpose’ last year.
In total, there have been 12 allegations of breaches of data protection against East Lancashire officers and a further nine against East Lancashire staff since 2008. In total for the whole force, there have been 30 against officers and 54 against staff in the last three years.
FOI Friday: Nightstalker, OAP abuse, crime in villages and shredded letters
The conviction of Delroy Grant, the Nightstalker sex attacker who police failed to catch despite being given a golden opportunity to do so, has been headline news this week. The News Shopper in London took the opportunity to republish an invesitgation it conducted into the hunt for the Nightstalker prior to Grant’s arrest.
Reporter Linda Grant used FOI to ask how many suspects had been arrested or interviewed (none at the time), and had cost £102,000 to process 2,054 DNA samples. The Met, however, refused to tell the paper how many additional crimes they were attributing to the Night Stalker at the time. A good example of FOI to shed light on an active case.
We see a lot of FOIs relating to abuse of children, but the Evening Gazette in Teesside reports on cases of abuse to elderly people by council-employed carers. Abuse reports included financial abuse, verbal abuse and a case of medication error.
The village where no crimes are solved
The village of Hagley, near Bromsgrove, was scene of 30 vehicle crimes and 29 burglaries last year. None were solved. The figures were obtained using FOI and published by the Bromsgrove Advertiser – a clever use of FOI to get two sets of data which paint a very interesting picture.
Crimes committed in police stations
Police stations are proving to be fascinating places for FOI requests. Following on from break ins at police stations and thefts from police stations comes this one from the Bristol Evening Police: The 226 crimes committed inside police stations – over half of which were for criminal damage. A few arsons too. You can see a similar request from GetReading here.
The other things seized at court
Remember the FOI about the number of knives seized at court? The Gloucester Citizen follows a similar line, but chose to ask for a list of everything seized at court from visitors. As well as knives and blades, screwdrivers, CS sprays and darts were also seized, along with cameras and recorders
If ever there was one job which was likely to provoke abuse, it’s the role of traffic warden. And so it seems in Swansea, where the South Wales Evening Post reports on 73 reported attacks on traffic wardens, the worst of which involved knocking down a traffic warden and driving off.
Kidnapping is a crime which is quite rare, and therefore tends to make the headlines when it happens. In Cambridgeshire, the Evening News used FOI to find out how often kidnaps were reported, and what the motives were, and how long people were held for. The resulting article is a fascinating insight into some unusual crimes.
THE number of cyclists in Wales fined for riding on the pavements has more than quadrupled since 2008. A total of 318 people were given £30 fixed penalty notices in 2010, compared to just 54 in 2008, according to figures released under the Freedom of Information Act.
Royal Mail’s love of the shredder
The Royal Mail initially refused to reveal how many letters it destroys a year, on the grounds it would cause negative publicity, but later relented and revealed it shreds 25 million letters year.
And here’s one to keep an eye on. Tory MP Robert Halfon has FOI’d 100 top universities to see how many of them have received donations from ‘Middle East sources’. First to be revealed this way is Durham University, which took £11,000 from Iran, and a total of £700,000 from the region.
FOI Friday (On a Tuesday again): Jet-setting council bosses, over 50s redundancies and racist schoolkids
1. ‘Culling staff aged over 50′ claim
A fascinating FOI from an organisation called Wise Owls, which campaigns for older workers, made an impact in the Carlisle News and Star. It revealed, using FOI, that of 24 people made redundant this year, 14 had been over 50. An FOI which could run and run this year? (Source: News and Star)
Fascinating figures from the Manifesto Club, the civl liberties group, which used FOI to find out how many reports of children being racist and homophobic were being logged by councils. The numbers are somewhat mindboggling – and proof of the stories you can get if you know the data councils store. (Source: Daily Telegraph)
3. Fat kids fail to lose weight
A good example of returning to a public project to see whether it has worked out, demonstrated by the Aberdeen Press and Journal. It asked NHS Grampian to reveal how many children had lost weight through a Healthy Weight Intervention Programme. Of 150, the answer was: 6. (Source: Press and Journal)
FOI Friday: Guns on the street, refunds for poor teaching, crimes in the town hall … and the hairbrush seized by cops
Using the Freedom of Information Act, the Sunday Mercury in Birmingham reported on the number of guns which police had taken off the streets in the past three years – some 9,000.
2. Drugs cases involving youngsters in hospitals
Sticking with the Sunday Mercury, it reported this week on a child under one who was admitted to hospital in Birmingham suffering from an overdose of a Class A drug. Four children, in total, have been admitted to hospital for ‘drug abuse’ medical problems.
Here’s one that could run and run, from an FOI-able body most people won’t have heard of. The Mail on Sunday used FOI to find out how many students had demanded refunds because they felt the uni teaching they received wasn’t up to scratch. The body which decides these cases is the Office of the independent Adjudicator, which saw the number of claims rise when tuition fees went up. Finding out how many complaints against each university would be the next logical step.
FOI FRIDAY: Wrongly-released prisoners, compo for teachers, police bill for mobile phone records and dodgy measures in the pub
Looking for an FOI idea? Here are 10 which made headlines recently….
The Liverpool ECHO used FOI to find out how many prisoners had been released from the city’s two prisons by mistake over the last few years. In total, nine were – including several who had been convicted of violent offences.
Teachers in the North East have received compensation payouts totalling £400,000 in the last few years as a result of accidents in the classroom. The Sunday Sun got the information using FOI, and also asked for a breakdown of payouts. As a result it was able to report where the largest payout was made, and for what:
One teacher in South Shields, South Tyneside, was given the highest individual payout of £50,000 after they tripped over a play bed and were left with a permanent wrist injury.
Another teacher in North Yorkshire – which paid out a total of £31,775 for eight claims – was compensated after getting an electric shock from the main supply. Payouts for the 2009/10 financial year totalled £230,620 – a rise of £52,000, or 29%, on the 2007/2008 financial year.
How reliable are the measures you receive in pubs and shops? The Coventry Telegraph set out to find that out using FOI – discovering the Trading Standards officers had uncovered dodgy scales and measuring equipment – eg petrol pumps, beer pumps – 128 times in the last few years.
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?
FOI Friday: 10 things we’ve learnt this week thanks to the Freedom of Information Act
A council with 100,000 unsuitable images on its computers, a police force revealing it doesn’t investigate almost a quarter of reported crimes and the rising cost of parking fines – here are 10 stories made possible this week thanks to the Freedom of Information Act.
Councils up and down the country are tasked with promoting their local economies, and they often nick ideas from each other – hence why nearly every town seems to have a German Christmas market (started in Birmingham, I think) or a big wheel (started in Manchester, again, I think). But how far do councils go to ensure they are supporting the local economy through their purchases? The Countryside Alliance used FOI to ask councils if they had a formal policy in place to ensure they tried to buy locally – the answer was that 74% did not.
2. Naughty images on council computers
Sticking with councils for the time being, The Nottingham Evening Post turned up an interesting discovery when it asked the local council how many unsuitable images had been found on its computer. The report states that the council has a software package it uses to track such things – is it possible other councils do the same? Is it worth asking any council how many instances of unsuitable images or unsuitable content being accessed has been reported in the last year? Interestingly, the NEP report says the council considered abandoning its probe into dodgy photographs when it saw the scale of the problem. That’ll solve it, then!
