FOI Friday: Roadworks hell, hidden art, naughty nurses and bedblocking patients

Plagues of roadworks < Get Surrey Dismay has been expressed over a ‘plague’ of roadworks on a stretch between Bramley and Guildford in the past three years. Information obtained under the Freedom of Information Act revealed that more than 860 individual projects were carried out on the A281 from 2012 to 2014 – an average

FOI Friday: Ambulance call out hot spots, crisis fund rejections, Premier League policing and missed 101 calls

Most frequent ambulance call out homes < BBC The Welsh Ambulance Service is urging people to think before dialling 999, after one home rang for an ambulance 290 times in a year. Of the call-outs to the property in Colwyn Bay, Conwy, 98 resulted in hospital visits. The service spent 3,660 hours dealing with the

FOI FRIDAY: Big benefit claims, football ground safety, spending on temps and how much headteachers earn

  1. School-based hate crimes investigated by the police < < < Western Morning News Sure, we’ve seen FOI requests about the number of reports of racism recorded by schools or local authorities – but this is the first time I’ve seen a figure for the number of times police have been called in to investigate

FOI Friday

The first FOI Friday of 2012 includes stories about councils using private detectives, a rise in cheating students, a benefit cheats round up and the cost of clearing up gypsy sites.

FOI Friday: Bed blocking, council ad spending, smoke alarms and police accidents

Hygiene fears in hospitals Not one for those who find Casualty squeamish: The Cynon Valley Leader reports on the reaasons why hospitals call out pest control services. Rats, mice, flies and bugs have all been reported at a cost of £258k. Playing with fire? Here’s an interesting statistic found under FOI: the percentage of fire

FOI FRIDAY: Underage booze, cops buying lip balm, quango spending and some interesting hospitality

1. Venues caught selling booze to under-aged teens Proof of the value of local knowledge when it comes to an FOI came from the South Wales Echo this week. Ed Walker initially had his request for the names of all venues caught selling booze to youngsters refused by the authorities – so he appealed it,