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

FOI Friday: Boozy toddlers, rats on the run, football debt & councillors dodging tax

Britain’s youngest boozer? The Sunday Mercury used FOI to ask local hospitals the ages of those aged 12 or under who were treated for booze addiction, and the total number. One child was aged just three, and a total of 107 under 12s in the region were treated. Parking fines Don’t all shout ‘We’ve done

FOI Friday: CCTV in high schools, parking charges, bad tickets and swine flu

1. CCTV cameras in secondary schools Submitting FOI requests to schools can be endurance test compared to approaching a local education authority for summary information they hold – but it can be worth it, as this story from the Coventry Telegraph proves. It used FOI to ask secondary schools how many CCTV cameras they had