FOI Friday: Teachers causing concern, prisoners on Facebook, school place fraud and teenage career criminals

Teachers on the ‘concern list’ < Basildon Echo ALMOST 170 teaching staff are on a council list showing there are concerns about their working in schools. They are not barred from working, but schools will be aware of the list of concerns, compiled by Essex County Council. A total of 23 teachers and 14 other

FOI FRIDAY: Jail smuggling, brand conscious police, cost-saving consultants and golden hellos for paramedics

‘Golden Hellos’ for new paramedics < Eastern Daily Press The East of England Ambulance Service paid the incentives to 59 qualified paramedics in 2013 to try and resolve the organisation’s staff shortage. However, five of the new recruits had to repay the £2,000 golden hello payments after leaving the trust, according to new figures. The

The 12 days of Local Pressmasness: Fortunate festive parents

  You find out you’re pregnant. You’re very excited. You find out the due date. It’s near Christmas. “Oooh, it could be a Christmas baby,” you think, while the organised amongst you start planning when to have it’s pretend birthday so the two aren’t too close together. Fast forward to December 25. Hours of painful

FOI Friday: Councils profiting on death, the food police, monitoring the impact of cuts and gun injuries uncovered

10 good examples of FOI in action from the local, regional and (in one case), national press: 1. One ‘L’ of an FOI – Yorkshire Evening Post The YEP made the most out of a familiar FOI – asking for stats relating to driving tests – to create something which was much more informative than the

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

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