Tagged: Yorkshire Post
FOI Friday: Unusual council waiting lists, a housing crisis, and the theft of a six-foot cardboard copper
1. Police officers disciplined for racism
Proof of the value of FOI disclosure logs – for journalists anyway. The BBC reports on seven police officers from West Mercia Police disciplined for racism. The BBC, which used the infamous ‘BBC has learnt’ in the intro, confirms later in the piece it found the information on West Mercia’s disclosure log.
2. Life-sized copper stolen from police station
I know the ‘things stolen from a police station’ FOI has been done a lot, but I wanted to include this one, simply because of what was stolen. According to the Bucks Free Press:
The catchphrase ‘you’re nicked’ has been spun on its head by daring thieves who pinched items including a life-size cut-out of a copper from police.
The six-foot tall cardboard crime deterrent was put under the long arm of a crook at a police station in the Wycombe LPA, information obtained by the Bucks Free Press reveals.
A truncheon and ‘five blue strobe flashing lights’, likely to be from a police car, were also nabbed from Wycombe police along with an item marked ‘other’.
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As is increasingly the case on social networks, the actual news was soon superceded by speculation about what happened, while broadcast news and news websites kept – largely – to the facts and went heavily on tributes.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: 999 attacks, bin fines, obese babies and plastic surgery
Area-by-area crime rates – and how many are solved (Oxford Mail)
There’s been a lot of debate about how valuable, or otherwise, the police crime maps are. They tell you about crime a month later, aren’t that accurate when it comes to naming the location and won’t tell you if the crime has been solves.
The Oxford Mail has perhaps produced something of at least equal value with an FOI to Thames Valley Police asking for an area by area breakdown of crimes committed, and the percentage solved. Not surprisingly, perhaps, there’s quite a postcode lottery at play. I would imagine the key to getting a success with this FOI is to ask for the figures broken down by area the police recognise – eg a police beat or area.
Fines for leaving the bins out (South Wales Echo)
In a week when the weekly bin collection was dropped as a policy by the government in England, a timely story about fines for leaving your bins out if you live in Cardiff:
Hundreds of households have been fined by a council for leaving their wheelie bins and rubbish bags out on the wrong day, we can reveal.
Cardiff council issued £100 fines to 416 homes in the year between April 2010 and March 2011, a Freedom of Information request to the authority showed.
Noisy animals (Manchester Evening News)
According to the Manchester Evening News, town halls in Greater Manchester have received 2,000 complaints about noisy animals in the last year – including 100 about chickens.
Among the more offbeat noisy complaints was one about a vocal parrot in Bury.
FOI FRIDAY: Benefit claims, burial problems, maternity complaints and noisy neighbourhoods
Benefits: A new area for FOI requests?
We start this week in Liverpool, where the ECHO has taken a closer look at the impact of the crackdown on people claiming incapacity benefits. Under FOI, it was able to establish that 1,000 people in Merseyside who had their benefits taken away from them on the grounds they were fit too work had the decision overturned on appeal – suggesting 1,000 people too ill to work did lose benefits for a while. The appeal success rate is one in three, according to the information from the Department for Work and Pensions
Here’s one I suspect will run and run, in both Suffolk and elsewhere in the country: Gagging orders at councils as staff leave. Suffolk County Council – them again 0 has issued 13 in 12 weeks, spending £400,000 on the compromise agreements in the process. I suspect Suffolk won’t be alone. The East Anglian Daily Times pulled up this story using FOI
An interesting bit of data FOI unearthed in the Lancashire Telegraph, which reports that an FOI request into how burial plots were available at graveyards in Burnley (2,000) would only be enough to last the area for 10 years, with 200 people opting to be buried every year.
Maybe it’s because I’m hopefully about to become a Dad, but asking for the number of complaints made to maternity departments seems quite a good way to enable would-be parents to assess how good a maternity unit is. The Evening Standard quotes data in relation to an article about a woman who died at a hospital where a lot of complaints had been made.
If MPs can’t travel First Class at the public’s expense, why should councillors? It’s a question Lancashire County Council struggled to answer when the Lancashire Evening Post used FOI to find out how much had been spent on first class rail tickets in recent years: £205,000 on 1,245 journeys. Tory leader Geoff Driver says it’s worth the extra expense because it means councillors can travel in a manner of “confidentiality, comfort and convenience”. An old FOI, but worth revisiting.
Overseas travel at the council
The Sunday Sun goes a little more global in its quest for information on travel costs at councils – working out that councils in the North spend £300,000 on overseas travel. The key to the success here was not only asking for cost of travel, but details of travel, as demonstrated by the intro:
HOW much does it cost to change a lightbulb? Well, it seems more than £1,000 for one North council.
That’s the amount dim bosses at the cash-strapped local authority forked out for an art expert to jet into the region twice – to help put up then take down a string of lights at a modern art show.
Councils often collect data and break it down to ward level – after all, someone has to take the random groupings of populations seriously. The Birmingham Mail used FOI to ask about noisy neighbour complaints, and received a ward-by-ward breakdown.
Sometimes, it’s easier to let an FOI story speak for itself, and that is the case with this clever one from the Yorkshire Post:
Cash-squeezed Yorkshire councils are paying their staff thousands of pounds in excessive car mileage rates, a Yorkshire Post investigation has revealed.
At a time when authorities are cutting services and axing jobs, many were paying employees 65p a mile if they were a casual user or 50.5p a mile, together with a £1,239 lump sum, for essential users during the last financial year. The Government’s recommended mileage rate is 40p.
Getting consultation information
Government – local and national – is fond of a good consultation, especially if the people being consulted agree with them. Consultations can be a massively useful source of information for journalists too, as the Oxford Student newspaper has demonstrated. It reports on responses from Oxford dons about government plans to charge more for Visas – saying it would lead to reduced applications from abroad.
Drugs busts are in the paper all the time, but what do they add up to? The Sheffield Star used FOI to get the total figures for drugs seizures:
Figures obtained by The Star using the Freedom of Information Act show cannabis plants worth over £39m have been recovered, along with a stash of heroin worth £4.8m, cocaine worth £4.1m, crack cocaine worth £2.1m and a haul of amphetamine worth another £2.1m.
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.
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: Lost warrant cards, council sick days, noisy students and the real cost of council savings
The Yorkshire Post used the Freedom of Information Act to find out how many warrant cards had been lost or stolen by officers in Yorkshire in recent years. The answer: 370. Why are warrant cards particularly important? According to the paper:
Just over a week ago a gang of distraction burglars were jailed for 21 years after tricking their way into the homes of residents in their 70s, 80s and 90s in Scarborough, York and Boston Spa by posing as police officers.
(Source: Yorkshire Post)
With council cuts looming large left, right and centre, the Sunday Sun in Newcastle used FOI to find out how many days were lost due to sickness in councils. The answer was 3,353 years of sick days lost in one year – with hundreds of people off for more than six months. According to union leaders, the current cuts will only make the problem worse:
Union leaders and stress experts say rising workloads, financial strains and the looming threat of job cuts is putting unbearable pressures on the workers.
(Source: Sunday Sun)
3. Payouts to the victims of Derrick Bird
Ahead of the Derrick Bird shooting inquests, the Daily Mirror had this story: the amount paid out by the Ministry of Justice’s Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority to the relatives of the victims of Bird. The average amount works out at £12k. (Source: Daily Mirror)
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: Maternity problems, schools failing fire checks, polluted rivers and cats stuck up trees
The dash to hospital - but will it be open?
1. Closed maternity units
It must be every new parent’s worst nightmare. Route to hospital carefully planned when contractions start, overnight bag packed, journey completed – only to be told the maternity unit is full. More worrying still is how common this scenario is, something the Western Mail revealed when it asked hospitals for the number of times it had had to announce maternity units were full. (Source: Western Mail)
Stories about schoolchildren misbehaving on the school bus are quite common, but how big is the problem overall? The Carlisle News and Star used Cumbria County Council to get statistics through FOI which show 14 children have been banned from buses for bad behaviour. (Source: Carlisle News and Star)
When the fire service carries out inspections of public buildings and workplaces, it can issue enforcement notices to get improvements done. The Lancashire Telegraph asked how many schools had been issued with enforcement notices and for what reasons. Answer: 7. Quite worrying if your school is involved. (Source: Lancashire Telegraph)
FOI Friday: Speed cameras, fines in a free car park, under-aged sex and naughty BBC employees
1. Fun with speed camerasAuthorities such as councils and police forces have been very reluctant to divulge information about speed cameras in recent times. For example, West Midands Police refused to reveal which cameras made the most cash for fear of vigilante attacks on the cameras involved. But Wales on Sunday managed to get some useful information out of police forces in Wales, asking how many cameras were active (ie switched on) on a chosen date.
2. Cost of closing a development agency
For all the coalition government talk about development agencies not providing value for money, there’s been little discussion of the cost of winding them up. One way to look at the cost of closing something down is to ask for the redundancy costs. The Lancashire Telegraph reports on an FOI request which revealed the redundancy bill at the North West Development Agency currently stands at £1.8million. Every little helps, and all that….
3. Fined for parking in a free car park
The Wokingham Times, like many newspapers, FOI’d the local council to find out how many parking tickets had been issued by the council and where. But it went beyond the top-line ‘total number’ of tickets in the story which followed, pointing out some interesting facts such as the number of tickets issued in car parks which were designated as free. Local knowledge + good FOI = better story?
At a time when councils are (rightly) pleading poverty, it’s worth asking how much they have in the bank as a result of Section 106 planning conditions – money developers have to pay the council to carry our improvements in an area as a result of a new development. For example, many councils will ask for money towards a new play park. The Bristol Evening Post did that and found there was £5million sat in the bank – it also reported where the money was meant to be spent.
FOI FRIDAY: Cuts, cuts and cuts – 10 FOI stories connected to spending
With the spending cuts being brought into sharp focus this week, I thought it’d be a good idea to look at some of the spending-related Freedom of Information requests which have made headlines in recent weeks. At a time when every pound spent is being accounted for, using FOI to keep the public informed of how cash has been used has probably never been more important….
1. The £25,000 website which attracts just 10 visitors a day
Starting this week with the Saddleworth News hyperlocal blog, run by journalist Richard Jones. Richard’s FOI to Oldham Council asked how much was spent on the Oldham Says website, which is run by the local strategic partnership, the sort of ‘multi agency’ partnership which exists in most parts of the country. Just 10 visitors a day suggests they could do better.
2. The doctor paid £5,000 for one shift
The NHS is to see its budget increased but has been challenged to ensure that spending goes to the frontline. The Express and Star in Wolverhampton used FOI to find out how much was spent on agency staff, such as nurses and doctors, and appears to have asked for the single largest payment for one shift too. That figure made the story – £5k for a 24-hour shift in A&E.
Cost-cutting is already taking effect in Scotland, it would appear. The Scotsman asked for details of all taxi journeys made over the past five years – and found £1.5m had been spent by the Scottish Government on journeys, including £129k on taxi journeys which went just 2.3miles between the Scottish Government’s two bases in Edinburgh. The advice from the Scottish Government to officers now is: “Get the bus.”
