Non-motoring > Misuse of Taxpayers Money? Freedom of Information. Miscellaneous
Thread Author: Fullchat Replies: 11
View Threaded 

New Tue 21 Sep 10 14:52 
 Misuse of Taxpayers Money? Freedom of Information. - Fullchat
If you have a few minutes to spare tap into this site:

www.whatdotheyknow.com/

Enter in say your local Police area and have a look at some of the complete drivel people request under the Freedom of Information Act.

Whilst some of the stuff is quite interesting I am concerned about the amount of resources tied up dealing with these requests.

My biggest concern is that I entered in my own Force area and saw requests relating to the Policing history of named individual Officers. Quite clearly if obtained this information was to be used as a means of attack/defence to a 'not guilty' plea.
Last edited by: Fullchat on Tue 21 Sep 10 at 14:53
Reply to this message | Report message
       
New Tue 21 Sep 10 15:25 
 Misuse of Taxpayers Money? Freedom of Information. - Old Navy
There should be a nominal fee, say £100 per request. To cover costs of course. It might discourage the serial requester.
Reply to this message | Report message
       
New Tue 21 Sep 10 15:30 
 Misuse of Taxpayers Money? Freedom of Information. - Tooslow
I believe there is a nominal fee, though I think it's £10.

I've been on the receiving end of one of these. Passed to me (back-heeled I'd say!) by a certain motoring related government dept we did work for. I think it got buried under "commercially sensitive" or some such thing. It related to manpower etc used by the IT supplier (us).

Don't forget these things must be replied to within a given time frame.

John
Reply to this message | Report message
       
New Tue 21 Sep 10 15:44 
 Misuse of Taxpayers Money? Freedom of Information. - FotheringtonTomas
FOI requests are important. Some things requested may appear "drivel" - perhaps they are situation or individual dependent. What is relevant to a court case is decided there.
Reply to this message | Report message
       
New Tue 21 Sep 10 16:05 
 Misuse of Taxpayers Money? Freedom of Information. - Bromptonaut
I do FOI for the outfit I work in & I've had to reply to stuff on that site. In principle it's a good idea; ask the questions and share the answers.

But FoI is about accessing information; stuff like how many, how much or the paper trail has to how a particular decision was reached. A lot of the questions on the WDTK site are about asking for policy to be justified to people who, for whatever reason are fundamentally opposed to the direction government has taken.

It's FoI that disclosed the scandal of MP expenses and has brought to light plenty of other skullduggery
Reply to this message | Report message
       
New Tue 21 Sep 10 16:15 
 Misuse of Taxpayers Money? Freedom of Information. - Iffy
Many public organisations have brought FOI requests upon themselves by their culture of secrecy.

It's something which has got much worse in the last 10 years or so, and the FOI act was a response to that.

The taxpayer is no longer prepared to be patted on the head and told: "We won't tell you because you wouldn't understand."

Any publicly funded employee who doesn't like that should quit, get a job in the private sector, and see if answering to directors and shareholders is any easier.

Reply to this message | Report message
       
New Tue 21 Sep 10 16:47 
 Misuse of Taxpayers Money? Freedom of Information. - Bromptonaut
Iffy,

No problem in principle with answering the questions. We've always had PQ's anyway.

But if the question starts to engage the exemptions in FoI there are some interesting balancing exercises to be undertaken.

Some of these are a potential smokscreen for stuff Ministers would rather keep hidden. But many others are the sort of thing in the OP where people's privacy is involved & they can be hard work. It's part of my job and I enjoy the challenge but 'exposing all' is not always an option.
Reply to this message | Report message
       
New Tue 21 Sep 10 18:00 
 Misuse of Taxpayers Money? Freedom of Information. - Iffy
...No problem in principle with answering the questions...

Bromptonaut,

Your attitude to public service has always struck me as very fair and reasonable, and I don't think public servants would get the bad press they do if all your colleagues shared the same values.

My limited experience of FOI suggests there are plenty of safeguards, and I had thought it was fairly easy to punt daft questions into the long grass.

I also understood an otherwise reasonable question could be refused if it would involve an unreasonable amount of work to unearth the information.

As a general point, research is notorious for taking much longer than it should.

So I can imagine you might think: 'I can find that out in an hour or two', only to be still bogged down with it four or five hours later.

It's happened to me.

Reply to this message | Report message
       
New Tue 21 Sep 10 16:44 
 Misuse of Taxpayers Money? Freedom of Information. - R.P.
They wouldn't be allowed that information - the Prosecution is now obliged to provide any discipline findings and criminal convictions of any Police Officer witnesses anyway.
Reply to this message | Report message
       
New Tue 21 Sep 10 17:59 
 Misuse of Taxpayers Money? Freedom of Information. - Robin O'Reliant
>>the Prosecution is now obliged to provide any
>> discipline findings and criminal convictions of any Police Officer witnesses anyway.
>>
Rather astonishing to think that serving police officers do have criminal convictions, but many have -

www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/mar/11/police-officers-criminal-records

Reply to this message | Report message
       
New Wed 22 Sep 10 08:24 
 Misuse of Taxpayers Money? Freedom of Information. - Cliff Pope
Fascinating range of requests, from the possibly relevant to the plainly barmy:

Why doesn't Dyfed-Powys Police change its name, as Dyfed was abolished years ago?
Don't know.

How many BNP members in the force? - refuse to state

Number of roaming dogs rounded up? Still counting

How many mystics has D-P police consulted? Information not held.

How many prosecutions for treason by D-P police? Still investigating - very old request.


So there we have it - democracy in action.

It's tempting to ask "What are the 39 steps ?" and see whether PC Plod responds in the voice of Mr Memory Man :)
Last edited by: Cliff Pope on Wed 22 Sep 10 at 08:24
Reply to this message | Report message
      1  
New Wed 22 Sep 10 09:28 
 Misuse of Taxpayers Money? Freedom of Information. - Bromptonaut
Currently waiting reply is this one for Northants:-

www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/mis_fuelling_of_motor_vehicles_97


How many diesel vehicles does the force have, how many inicdences of miss-fueling and what is the cost.

There's a story, surely apocryphal, of a diesel police vehicle being filled with petrol. It's towed off to the workshops, drained etc and left ready for collection. PC Woodentop duly signs for the keys and climbs aboard. Notices that low fuel light is on, drives round the depot and re-fills it - with petrol!!
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Wed 22 Sep 10 at 09:29
Reply to this message | Report message
       
Latest Forum Posts