Among yesterday’s front pages was a data visualisation which, at first glance, was one of the most effective I’ve ever seen: the Independent had made an infographic showing yesterday’s £6bn budget cuts in context - as a fraction of a debt mountain.
Then I looked closer - and something’s very, very wrong.
Can you tell what it […]
…And we’re back. FoI watch #2, for your viewing pleasure:
‘Dodgy dossier’ draft one released: The Information Tribunal has ruled the foreign office should reveal an early draft of the dossier which took us to war with Iraq - three years after the original response. One to watch - Chris Ames has still not seen the document, and if the FO take it to the high court, we could have at least a few more months to wait
Department of Health failing to comply with FoI: The HSJ is having no joy getting the DoH to comply with their FOI requests. This comes as no shock - calling them for advice on drafting an FoI was like pulling teeth. They insisted on filtering my request through a (helpful) receptionist, rather than speaking to me direct. And concluded I’d “just have to make the request” to find out if they held any such documents. So much for duty to provide assistance, eh?
BBC avoids releasing Israel report: The Court of Appeal has upheld the Information Commissioner’s decision that he cannot rule on the BBC’s refusal to release its report into its Israel/Palestine coverage. The BBC can refuse to release any documents relating to its journalism - and the ICO has ruled it cannot decide what constitutes journalism. Cast-iron get out clause, there.
42 per cent of ‘answerable’ requests refused: If anyone knows the source of this statistic, I’d love to see it.
ICO orders release of MPs spending information: Good step forwards here. There’s also a Information Tribunal hearing coming up (7 Feb) on MPs expenses - brought by Heather Brooke.
Cabinet office google me: Yes, this is a gratuitous extra link to my Cif piece. Moving swiftly on…
And finally….the truth is out there: The UK’s UFO files have been opened - and are deathly dull. Unless the Government’s suppressed the real ones, of course. That would explain it alright. Couldn’t be that there just haven’t been any UFOs. Course not. That’d just be silly.
My latest Comment is Free piece, on the FoI Act and being googled by the cabinet office, can be found here.
