Tagged: sunday sun
FOI FRIDAY: Mice at Manchester United, appealing students, cabbie grumbles and turning the lights off
Mice raid Manchester United < < < Manchester Evening News
I love this FOI. Simple, but effective – although the sports editor might not thank you
Manchester United had to deal with a mice infestation at Old Trafford, the M.E.N. can reveal. The outbreak was one of a number of hygiene and safety issues flagged up by council officials when they inspected the stadium restaurant, the Red Cafe and the staff canteen, last July. The Red Cafe was given the all-clear but the staff canteen in the West Stand was found to have a mouse infestation.
The council report was obtained by the M.E.N. under Freedom of Information laws. We asked for the results of the most recent hygiene inspections carried out at both Old Trafford and Manchester City’s ground, the Etihad Stadium
The wasted hours of ambulances at hospitals < < < Aldershot News and Mail
This data used to be released regularly – now FOI is required
MORE than 850 hours was lost through ambulance delays at Frimley Park Hospital in the first three months of the year.
Figures obtained by the News & Mail using the Freedom of Information Act show more than 863 hours were lost in turnaround times for ambulances serving the hospital’s A&E department between January and March.
The statistics only include the number of hours lost which went over the trust’s turnaround target of 30 minutes.
Continue reading
FOI Friday: Dirty hospitals, re-employed redundant council workers, lost dogs and drug warrants
A fortnightly round-up of FOI-based stories which could be followed up anywhere…
The secret past of would-be teachers < < < Sunday Sun
POSSESSING explosives, being drunk while in charge of a child, death by reckless driving and indecent assault on a girl . . these are just some of the serious criminal convictions would-be teachers in the North have under their belt.
Hundreds of potential teachers have been applying for classroom positions across the region despite holding a range of serious criminal convictions, the Sunday Sun can reveal.
Information released by the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB), after the Sunday Sun made a Freedom of Information Act request, revealed the scale of convictions clocked up by teachers applying for positions in the North.
Childhood drugs overdoses < < < Sunderland Echo
A SIX-YEAR-OLD was rushed to Sunderland Royal Hospital after overdosing on antidepressants.
The shocking revelation comes as new figures show three people a day are admitted to the city’s hospital after taking a drug overdose.
A total of 2,999 people were taken to A&E after overdosing on prescribed or non-prescribed medicine and drugs from December 2008 to December 2011.
The youngest was a six-year-old. A further five 12-year-olds were admitted after overdosing on painkillers, penicillin and anti-inflammatory drugs.
More council compensation claims < < < Sunday Mercury
A COUNCIL grave digger has been awarded £65,000 compensation – after he fell into a burial plot he was preparing.
The cemetery worker received the payout from Birmingham City Council (BCC) after he hurt his right knee in the incident.
He is one of several local authority employees who have claimed compensation after being injured at work.
In another case a school worker was handed £100,000 after slipping on food in a dinner hall.
FOI Friday: Hospital parking, strange police phone calls, cheating students and criminals applying to work in schools
Toilet seats and compensation < < < Birmingham Mail
A WORKER sued Birmingham City Council and won £1,750 after a toilet seat collapsed causing him injuries, it has emerged.
The man was one of 274 successful claims in the last five years leaving taxpayers with a bill of almost £5 million.
Trips, exposure to deadly asbestos and problems with training were behind some of the most costly compensation payouts by the city council last year, the Birmingham Mail can reveal.
The cost of defending claims by a police force < Carlisle Times and Star
Cumbria Constabulary has paid out almost £50,000 in five years defending itself against employees who made claims of racism, sexism and unlawful deduction of wages.
The figures, released under the Freedom of Information Act, show 12 employees made claims against the force between 2008 and 2011.
Of these cases, Cumbria Constabulary lost three following an employment tribunal, won three and settled five without the need for an employment tribunal.
Bomb alerts in a city < < < Bradford Telegraph and Argus
Bomb experts carried out a controlled explosion after a smoke grenade was found in a Bradford alleyway in the 15th Army call-out to the city in three years.
Statistics from the Ministry of Defence released to the Telegraph & Argus under the Freedom of Information Act show the Catterick-based Army bomb disposal unit had been deployed to 14 other reports of suspicious packages, bomb hoaxes and improvised explosive devices in the district before the latest incident on Monday night.
Violent criminals apply to work in schools < < < Sunderland Echo
VIOLENT thugs, benefit fraudsters, drink drivers, drug users and a witness who lied under oath.
These are just some of the people who have applied to teach your children.
Today the Echo reveals the long list of convictions held by people applying to work with children in Sunderland’s schools.
The criminal offences were discovered when the past of applicants was scrutinised by the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB).
A Freedom of Information Act request found that 72 applications made in the city in the last two years were flagged up by the checking process, which unearthed 180 previous convictions.
A parking ticket issued every five minutes < < < Western Morning News
Motorists in Cornwall are being punished with parking tickets once every five minutes, the Western Morning News has discovered.
Parking officers handed out more than 36,000 tickets across the county in the past year, with drivers paying out more than £1.5 million in fi1nes.
Student plagerism on the rise < < < Nottingham Post
THE number of university students in Nottingham getting caught for cheating in coursework is on the rise.
In the past year 340 students in the city have been caught for plagiarism – almost 100 more than last year.
According to figures obtained by the Post, through a Freedom of Information request, the number of students found guilty of plagiarism at Nottingham Trent University has more than doubled, shooting up from 94 students in 2009/10 to 211 students 2010/11.
Crazy calls made to police < < < Sunday Sun
FROM vampire chases and alien attacks, to UFO and zombie sightings… these are just some of the spooky calls taken by North police forces.
Dozens of members of the public believe they have had a brush with the supernatural over the last five years.
The Sunday Sun can reveal the wacky calls received by forces in the region after a Freedom of Information Act request unearthed some ghostly goings-on.
Since 2007 more than 80 calls in relation to UFOs, aliens, zombies, vampires, ghosts and witches have been made to police by concerned members of the public.
Police officers who quit while conduct probed < < < Manchester Evening News
CAMPAIGNERS have demanded an end to hospital parking charges for seriously ill patients after a Sunday Sun investigation revealed £8m was raked in by health trusts last year.
A probe has revealed nine NHS trusts in the region raised a whopping £8,287,429 in parking fees – that’s up £106,000 on the previous year.
But many scrap all charges in some special cases, making parking free or discounted for cancer and renal patients and long-stay relatives.
Parking fines rebooted < < < The Birmingham Post
The ‘please name your top 20 streets for parking fines’ story is almost as old as the Freedom of Information Act itself but put in the context of tough economic times for businesses, it is perhaps more relevant than ever. To that end, the Birmingham Post got hold of Birmingham’s top 20 list – with one small street raking in almost £100,000.
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.
FOI Friday
1. Cheating Students – Northampton Chronicle
INCIDENTS of plagiarism by students at the University of Northampton in exam coursework have increased by 65 per cent in the past four years.
Latest figures show that 391 students were found guilty of ‘academic misconduct’ which primarily relates to deliberate or unintentional cases of copying other people’s work.
The statistics, available from a Freedom of Information request, show there were 237 incidents of academic misconduct in 2006/7, 245 in 2007/8, 284 in 2008/9 and 391 in 2009/10.
2. Council bosses take redundancy – and return as consultants – Merton Guardian
Town hall bosses have “serious questions to answer” after Merton’s cash-strapped council spent thousands of pounds on redundancy payouts to senior employees, only to rehire them as highly-paid consultants.
Since May 2010, five so-called ‘boomerang bosses’ have found jobs back at Merton Council after £178,000 was spent laying them off.
A series of emails, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, show that a week before chief executive Ged Curran authorised her job offer, the council’s head of human resources, Dean Shoesmith, gave Ms Williams instructions on how to become a consultant.
3. 72 benefit cheats in Lincolnshire caught claiming more than £320k – Louth Target
MORE than £320,000 in benefits has been fraudulently claimed in East Lindsey in the last nine months.
In total, 72 benefit cheats were caught by the district council during that period with the biggest fraudster, from Alford, being successfully prosecuted for claiming £58,325 too much for failing to declare a partner living in the household.
Figures released under the Freedom of Information Act show that 15 people were brought before the courts for the offences in 2009/10 compared to 30 in 2010/11.
However East Lindsey District Council, who brought the prosecutions, says the figures don’t necessarily mean fraud is on the increase.
FOI: Why looking beyond the obvious can pay dividends
Here’s the front page of last week’s Sunday Sun. You might recognise the story, even if you don’t read the Sunday Sun – it was widely followed up by the Nationals on Monday.
Joshua Shrimpton-Dean, a trainee on the Press Association course in Newcastle, used FOI to ask East Coast, the rail operator on the East Coast mainline, for details of the expenses claims put in by directors.
It took a while for the information to come back – but it was worth the wait. The story revealed that one director had caught the plane from Scotland to London on several occasions – because the train would have taken too long.
Not quite the message East Coast is trying to get across to its customers, I’m sure.
FOI Friday: Social workers, noisy sewing machines, weight-loss surgery and court fines
The Eastern Daily Press used FOI to ask how much Suffolk County Council had been spending on hiring social workers. The story isn’t questioning the salaries of social workers, but the amount spent with agencies on getting the staff in, either temporary or full time. The county council spent nearly £1million with agencies last year, compared to just £300,000 three years ago.
I’ve blogged before about FOI being a means to the story, rather than the story itself. And this article from the Portsmouth News proves that approach works very well. The FOI figures on alcohol-related admissions to the local casualty department confirm the number of cases is going up, rather than down, but the stats from the FOI request are there to support a wider piece which involved spending a night out with paramedics. In other words, FOI stories need not be dry.
How busy are the armed police?
Armed police are called out four times a day across the North, according to the Sunday Sun – a total of 15,000 call outs in the last 10 years. Interestingly, the numbers in recent years have fallen a bit – not because there are fewer incidents, but because officers with tasers are sent to some incidents first.
FOI Friday: Council employee compo, eating disorders, gypsy education and spying
1. Employer liability claims against councils
Lancahsire County Council paid out £1,250 to a member of staff who got a bad back from carrying a heavy refreshments tray while on duty. That was one of 179 claims made against LCC, reported by the Lancashire Evening Post, over the past four years – payouts have totalled more than £2million. Perhaps the most surprising one was this one:
£5,500 to a worker who fell out of bed responding to a phone call
A handy reminder of the value of returning to FOIs which may have been done elsewhere in the past. The Sunday Sun asked councils to reveal details of when they had used Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) powers to investigate members of the public.
The act means authorities can follow residents suspected of crime, trawl their internet browsing history and recruit informants and private investigators to monitor their movements. Some councils in the North even use it to snoop on their own staff.
3. Children with eating disorders
Bedfordshire on Sunday carried a worrying report on how eating disorders among young children was on the rise. It obtained the information by asking the South Essex Partnership Trust – the mental health trust for the area – for details of the numbers of cases, the sex of each case, and the age. The youngest were six and seven.
FOI: Can a journalist overuse FOI?
I posted the other week on a good use of FOI by the Brighton Argus, which uncovered an investigation into an alleged manslaughter at one of its local hospitals after submitting an FOI request.
It demonstrated succinctly the secretive tendencies of both police forces and hospital trusts, and as a result proves just how valuable a tool FOI has become.
Hold The Front Page covered the paper’s success too, but the comment from Argus editor Michael Beard struck me as peculiar. While praising the story as an example of ‘FOI at its best’, he added:
“Newspapers need to be careful not to overuse the Act, but this story proves that it is vitally important and useful in uncovering important issues and holding public authorities to account.”
Like this:
FOI Friday: Tonsils, waiting in ambulances, thefts from courts and some interesting emails
Courts were told to push for tougher sentences
When doing FOI Friday, I try and pick FOI stories which can be replicated elsewhere. Based on that criteria, including this story from The Guardian seems a bit odd. Basically, the Guardian got hold of court emails which encouraged magistrates to direct riot-related offences to crown court for sentence. The reason I’ve included it is because it demonstrates just how powerful FOI can be if you go beyond numbers and ask for documents. Emails can be a rich source of stories – from memos directing traffic wardens where to target for parking through to stuff like this.
There’s something particularly good about this use of FOI. Yes, it’s about hospital admissions relating to drink, but it’s just so thorough. The Sunday Sun reveals how the number of admissions to hospital for alcohol-related matters have rocketed in five years. But they also asked for age-group breakdown – those in their 40s and 50s are the biggest group – the youngest admissions, and a breakout for cases treated in A&E alone. Good stuff.
