You’re too late to get your Halloween FOI requests, but now might be a good time for a Christmas FOI request.
Has your local council got a star-studded* Christmas lights switch-on planned? How much is that costing? More generally, how much are those Christmas lights costing (and have we switched to LEDs to save a bit of cash…and the planet). Is the Christmas sparkle budget in decline?
You could also repurpose some classic FOI ideas with a festive twist, such as looking at parking fines for Christmas shoppers.
*soap star who happens to have grown up locally.
In the meantime, this week’s FOI stories…
Maternity failings
Almost two babies are lost each week due to failings in maternity care, new research reveals.
The research, carried out by medical negligence law firm Lime Solicitors, was based on freedom of information requests to every trust in England who were each asked for a number of medical negligence claims relating to stillbirths between the years 2012/13 and 2022/23. This found there have been a total of 933 stillbirth claims paid to bereaved parents over the past 11 years – the equivalent almost two a week.
A separate freedom of information request submitted to NHS Resolution showed that NHS trusts paid out a total of 93 million pounds – including legal fees – to settle 933 clinical negligence claims relating to stillbirths over the same period.
Rough sleeping deaths
Glasgow has one of the highest totals of deaths among homeless people according to research by campaigners. According to the Dying Homeless Project, there were 51 deaths among people who had no home of their own in the city last year.
The research carried out by Museum of Homelessness shows the people are among 206 in Scotland and at least 1,474 across the UK. The group analysed Freedom of Information requests from councils, inquests and media reports to establish a picture of people dying while waiting to get a permanent home.
Schools in need of updates
Hundreds of old and leaky school buildings in England still don’t have builders assigned to them – even though they’re on a flagship government rebuilding programme.
The BBC has found 23 schools have been completed so far and a further 490 are still waiting. Most do not yet have builders on board. The DfE originally projected that 83 contracts would be awarded by March 2023.
However, its response to a BBC Freedom of Information (FOI) request revealed only 62 had been issued by June 2024.
Long dental waits
Dental patients are facing four-year waits to see an NHS dentist in some of Britain’s worst “dental deserts”, new figures have revealed. The stats, obtained by The Sunday Telegraph, show how people in Devon and Cornwall are on average waiting 1,441 days to even get registered with a dentist.
The figures from a local helpline are also detailed in Freedom of Information disclosures that show waits of three years and eight months for children in the same area.
Long ambulance waits
A patient was forced to wait up to two days for an ambulance to arrive in the Lothians earlier this year, according to Freedom of Information figures from the Scottish Conservatives.
Data shows that a yellow category patient in Lothian waited 48 hours for an ambulance in May 2024, while an amber category patient in Grampian faced a 22-hour delay in February. Another patient in Ayrshire and Arran waited 32 hours, 43 minutes and 23 seconds in February 2024.
Expenses
Vice chancellors at leading universities claimed at least £1m in expenses in the past two years, an investigation by i can reveal.
University bosses, who earn more than £300,000 a year on average, claimed for five-star hotel rooms, meals at trendy London restaurants, taxi fares of more than £200, and even luxury cookware – including a £39 herb chopper.
The spending habits of vice chancellors are revealed after i submitted almost 130 Freedom of Information (FoI) requests. Several universities refused to hand over their full expenses data, meaning the true figure, is likely to be much higher.
Bank fraud
Last year, the UK’s national reporting centre for fraud and cyber-crime Action Fraud, received almost 10,000 reports of fraud in which Revolut was named, according to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request submitted by Panorama.
That is 2,000 more than Barclays, one of the biggest banks in the UK, and double that of Monzo, a competitor of similar size to Revolut.
Christmas Lights
Now might be the time to get your Christmas light FOIs in.
Sheffield council spent £138,000 this year on Christmas lights and decorations despite cancelling the traditional switch on, a freedom of information request found. This is an increase from £126,031 in 2023 and £116,375 in 2022.
The traditional town hall Christmas light switch on was cancelled for the second year running with the council citing safety concerns about the large number of people gathering in the city centre. This year the light switch on is being replaced by a festive weekend event called Crackers for Christmas.
Image by Artem Saranin on Pexels
