Being annoyed about something not working is a good starting place for an FOI request.
And that’s how I ended up in a months-long ‘FOI row’ with Cardiff Bus because I got stuck at a bus stop waiting for lost or cancelled buses…again.
This week a story highlights spending on taxis to take prescriptions and medication to patients after they leave hospitals.
It came from an FOI from someone working in the area who saw this happening and wanted more information about how common it is. This really is the point of the Freedom of Information Act, it lets you ask for more information from public bodies about the things you’re interested in.
Taxi for paperwork
Scotland’s flagship hospital has spent tens of thousands on taxis to deliver medicine and paperwork to patients.
Insiders say when someone is discharged from the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow, staff often fail to have prescriptions and paperwork ready before transport arrives to take them home.
An ambulance insider was so annoyed by what he sees as “a complete waste of money” he put in a freedom of information request to find out the scale of the problem.
The FOI revealed there has been a steady increase in the number of prescriptions sent out by ambulance since 2021. The total bill from 2020 to May this year for delivering paperwork to patients by the same method is £5139.10, which brings the combined taxi bill to £48,373.87.
Knives in schools
Two boys aged just nine years old were found with knives in schools in the West Midlands, BirminghamLive has learned. The boys were found in possession of deadly blades on school grounds to the alarm of headteachers, before police were called.
Terrifying weapons found in the corridors and classrooms included machetes, combat knives, a cleaver, dagger, sword and zombie knife. There were 46 cases over the 18-month period where police were called.
Individual schools were not named by West Midlands Police following the freedom of information request.
Unfair hiring practices
Black women applying to police forces are three times as likely as white women – and men – to be rejected, a Media Storm data investigation has found.
Despite their growing notoriety for institutional sexism, UK police forces were at least able to claim they had achieved gender parity in recruitment, with male and female applicants enjoying equal success rates of 20% during Police Uplift, the three year Conservative-led recruitment of 20,000 officers which ended in March 2023.
Yet, Media Storm’s data, obtained through Freedom of Information requests, shows that while one in five white female applicants got in, only one in 14 black women did.
Rural domestic abuse
In 2019, the landmark “Captive and Controlled” report , studied police responses to domestic abuse in Derbyshire, Devon and Cornwall, Dorset, Durham, Lincolnshire, North Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire.
It found the forces’ handling of domestic abuse in the countryside – where victims are often more isolated and abuse can go on 25% longer than in urban areas as a result – was “largely inadequate”.
Five years on and Freedom of Information figures obtained by the BBC show the number of offences reported to the seven forces has gone up by 15% compared with the year of the report.
Figures for the seven forces could only be provided for the nine months up to December 2023 but they show there were just 3,312 successful convictions.
Stolen defibrillators
Transport for London (TfL) has had to move some Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) from unlocked cabinets in London Underground (tube) stations because of thefts, new data can exclusively reveal.
A Freedom of Information request sent by SWLondoners to TfL showed that from 2015 to 2023, 24 stations had AEDs, better known as defibrillators, stolen in London tube stations, with Bow Road Station particularly affected.
Phone thefts
A regular attendee of Leicestershire’s Download Festival has claimed that phone thefts had “never been so rife” as they were at this year’s event.
In response, Live Nation, the organiser of the event, said a “robust 24-hour security operation” was in place during the festival “alongside Leicestershire Police who were on site.” A Freedom of Information (FOI) request by LeicestershireLive revealed Leicestershire Police received 85 reports of phone thefts during and after Download.
Escalating problems
The escalator at Bury’s Metrolink station has been out of service for more than 400 days in the last three years, data from a Freedom of Information Act request has revealed.
According to the data, the current outage has lasted more than 280 days, since 11.22am on October 3, 2023.
Taking the biscuit
Defence chiefs have spent £50,000 of taxpayers’ cash on posh biscuits for top brass and senior civil servants. Almost 108,000 packets, including, shortbread fingers and Viennese Swirls, have been eaten since 2016.
A Freedom of Information release showed that brands favoured by Ministry of Defence staff in London include Crawfords and Meredith & Drew.
The MoD said: “Limited refreshments are supplied in a small number of diplomatic meetings and such spending continues to reduce.”
Image by Izabella Árvai on Pexels
