Foi News

No FoI required

Sadly things can go wrong at hospital

One really positive thing about the Freedom of Information Act is how it has made organisations proactively release information.

I waste many an hour clicking down blind alleys on the internet in the hope of turning up an information gem.

One such organisation that publishes a lot of its material as a matter of course on the web is the National Health Service Litigation Authority (NHSLA).

This organisation has the unenviable job of paying out for medical negligence claims that occur within the NHS. It pays for these claims by billing NHS organisations, mainly hospital trusts, a premium for cover, and then it administers any payouts.

Therefore the NHSLA has a database that contains how much each Trust pays for cover as well as how much has been paid out in claims for that particular organisation.

All of this information is on openly available websites that anybody with an internet connection can click on to. Here are the most recently available figures. NHSLAFactsheet5201011.

From my local newspaper days it seems a crying shame that so few reporters have latched on to this organisation as the data can be used to provide some illuminating articles about the level of care provided by their local hospital.

I used the data this week for a story that appeared in the Sunday Express.

Sunday Express

Beeb and Bernie - Part II

I'm afraid there is no trophy. Sorry.

You may well be away that the BBC has found itself at the centre of a sexism row involving its nominations for Sports Personality of the Year.

All the ten candidates are men and it has been disclosed that for some obscure reason people from “respectable” pornography magazines just as Nuts and Zoo were tasked with picking the nominees.

The BBC has said it will look again at how the process should be managed, but isn’t going to change anything for this year.

So, with that in mind I have decided to right a wrong. I will now announce to a fanfare of applause the FoI News Freedom of Information Officer of the Year Award 2011, otherwise known as the “Poison Chalice” award.

The award, which consists of no cash and no actual prize (so don’t bother to see if it is declared on any gift register) goes to Rachael Ward of the BBC.

“Why her?” I hear you cry. I’m sure she probably will not thank me for this, but it is awarded for displaying courage under fire from superiors. I’ll try to explain more fully.

After a considerable wrangle I eventually wrote a story based upon the fact that the BBC gave a set of Wimbledon men’s final tickets to multi-millionaire Bernie Ecclestone.

Having taken some time to extract this from the Beeb I suspected something might be amiss and sent off the dreaded “meta-request” – a request about a request – or the request of last resort.

When the response came back not only did it give a full account of how the details of Bernie’s tickets were released but also how FoI officer Ward stood firm in front of pressure from her superiors.

Her boss Dominic Coles e-mailed her saying: “Rather than naming Bernie Ecclestone specifically, can we not say two tickets were offered for use by Formula One Management?”  

She could have crumbled under the pressure of the six-figure pay packet, but she didn’t. She held on to the principles of FoI, buttressed by the law itself and sent me out Bernie’s name – much to Bernie’s initial annoyance.

The “cover-up that wasn’t” story appeared in the Mail on Sunday. For those of you interested the full BBC disclosure can be seen here. [RFI20111231 ].

My love-match with “Mr E”

Is that Matthew Davis on the line?

Every year I send an FoI request to the BBC to see how many free tickets the Corporation gets for Wimbledon.

Over the years the request has been modified to discriminate between tickets for No.1 and Centre Court and most recently who had received the tickets.

This year after a little bit of misunderstanding with the lovely people in the BBC’s FoI office I was eventually handed the names of the people who got the prize tickets, those for the men’s final on centre court.

Imagine my surprise when I see on the letter that one pair went to F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone. I knew I had a story and as you can see below it made a nice show in the Sun.

But then things took a turn for the worse when my phone rang on the morning the story was published. The conversation went a bit like this.

Caller: Is that Matthew Davis?

Me: Yes.

Caller: Mr Ecclestone here.

Me (in high voice): What Mr Bernie Ecclestone?

Caller: Yes, that’s me. Listen, I don’t like people who write lies about me. I didn’t get any freebie tickets for Wimbledon. Why would I have to accept freebies?

As you can imagine at this point I was getting a little concerned. Images of my bankruptcy, being forced to live in the street with my children foraging in dustbins flashed before my eyes.

I told him that I hadn’t made it up but had been provided with the information by the BBC, and seeing as it was a FoI response I was happy to forward it on to him. You can see a copy here Beeb’s FoI reply.

Later that day I got another personal call from Mr Ecclesstone, where he admitted being reminded by one of his staff that he did accept a pair of tickets from the BBC, but handed them on to the President of Valencia.

It all ended quite amicably and I had quite a nice chat with ‘Mr E’.

As a part-time media law lecturer one of the things that has always appealed to me about FoI is how the answer should always act as a justification against any potential legal problems, as long as your interpretation of it is correct. Hence the need to make your question as crystal clear as possible.

What is the “public interest”?

Look into my eyes...look into my eyes

What is in the public interest has always been something of a thorny issue, especially when it comes to its use in Freedom of Information.

Personally I say thank the Lords (because apparently it was the House of Lords which decided to put the public interest test into FoI) that we have this weapon to set about the Qualified exemptions.

At the moment I’m involved in two disputes over information at opposite ends of the spectrum, but both hinge on the public interest test.

The first involves the Cabinet Office and its refusal to reveal documents written by our ex Prime Minister Tony Blair that were sent to George Bush.

These notes are central to the Iraq inquiry, whose head Sir John Chilcot asked to make the documents public, and when this was refused said the decision was “disappointing”.

The crux of these documents is whether they confirm the belief among many people that Tony Blair gave his word to the US President that British troops would join the war, before Parliament voted on the issue.

You can see the history of this request at WhatDoTheyKnow [here], and I’ve blogged about this in the past [here]. The information has been denied me on the basis S.35 (formulation of Government policy), S.36 (prejudice to the effective conduct of public affairs) and S.27 (international relations).

Were our troops sent to war just because Blair had “promised”? Could there be a clearer public interest? The case is now in the hands of the Information Commissioner.

Headmaster Vic Goddard flicks the Vs at his deputy head. Mr Chips he is not.

At the other end of the scale some of you may have been watching #EducatingEssex, a horrific fly-on-the-wall documentary about a school in Harlow.

I watch the show goggle-eyed at the way the show profiteers from seeing children taken into care, getting involved in scrapes with the police, getting pregnant, abusing teachers.

We are at the end of the series next week and ironically we have seen precious little educating of the Essex populous.

As a journalist I have to tread incredibly carefully if I do a story that identifies a child, particularly if it is something to do with their schooling – but this programme seems to have side-swerved the regulations in exchange for children grabbing their five minutes of fame. Responsible journalism? I think not.

So I wanted to know how much the documentary company paid the school for the privilege of being allowed into the school.

Surprise, surprise, they will not tell me. You can see the full response to my questions [Passmores1]. But they have applied the S.43 (commercial interests) exemption, and yes you’ve guessed it the public interest is not to disclose the amount.

Amazing that the public interest is in knowing which of his students are pregnant at 15, which of them get taken into care, which of them run away from home – but not how much the school got paid for selling off the pupils’ private lives for the amusement of viewers.

I’ve appealed this back to the headmaster Vic Goddard – a man who on the show seems to insist in empathising with errant schoolchildren by calling them “mate”. I suspect this case will run and run.

NOTE: Apologies for being away for so long.

Come Fly Away With Me (Part II)

Sir High, former Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland

The row that centres on a Freedom of Information request around the free flights job perk offered to Sir Hugh Orde looks set to run and run.

To recap, the PSNI were forced to disclose – against Sir Hugh’s wishes – what sort of arrangement was in place to fund flights for his family.

This disclosure [link] reveals Sir Hugh had it written into his contract that members of his family were entitled to free flights paid for by the PSNI.

However, according to the documents released Sir Hugh, who successfully sued a newspaper over freebie flight allegations, agreed at some point during his tenure to repay 50% of the cost.

Of course the disclosure that his family were allowed free flights has sparked the obviously follow-up question of how much those flights had cost, and what exactly was the agreement within his contract of employment.

A member of the Northern Ireland assembly is already asking questions [link]. So I’ve asked the question here [link].

Sir Hugh, is now President of the Association of Chief Police Officers, an organisation which is expected to be admitted into the FoI regime in the not too distant future.

You can see my previous post on the topic here [link]. I can see this ending up at a Tribunal.

An eye for an eye

Remember to tick all the right boxes.

Some of you may have seen that the people in charge of the transplant organ database have managed to get themselves into trouble with the Information Commissioner recently.

As I was involved in a long dispute over the contents of a report into a botched organ transplant, the fact that the organ donor database was shown to be less than 100% didn’t come as much surprise to me.

The organisation in question – NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) – look after the donor register, so that if a person dies it can sanction the use of organs from those that have passed away.

Those of you, who like me, have ever filled in the Donor Registration form, will know that there is a section where you can either hand over 100% of yourself or you can opt for the a la carte option where you say you can have my heart but not my liver (one careful owner).

Well it would appear that in more than 400,000 cases the NHSBT has managed to mangle up its database so that people who thought they were keeping their corneas and such like found they were recorded as being up for grabs.

How this discrepancy in the database was established hasn’t been fully explained although the NHSBT has been told to go back and sort out the mess. You can see the undertaking [here].

Why am I bothered about all this? Well years ago I established from the NHSBT that there were two occasions when a patient had an organ transplanted into their body only to find out that due to a clerical mix up it didn’t match their blood group.

I got hold of the report into one of these incidents and when I wrote it up it was the Page 1 story in the Mail on Sunday.

So I was keen to get my hands on the second one. In this case I made my application to NHS London as they had a copy of the report sent from the Royal Brompton Hospital where the botched procedure had taken place.

Of course S.40 was used to reject my request and my initial appeal and eventually it worked its way through to the Information Commissioner.

Essentially the key point was could the report be kept secret under S.40 (Personal Information). I wanted, and stressed this to the Commissioner, that I didn’t want the patient’s personal details but the reasons for the mistake being made.

Well the Information Commissioner reached his decision [here] and ruled that I was right and S.40 did not apply to the report. But he put in one caveat, in that some of the report, it was considered should still be exempt, which I thought would be the personal bits.

I waited a while after the decision and eventually NHS London e-mailed me with the redacted report [RBHH Redacted SUI report FOI Matthew Davis]. Unfortunately it has undergone severe surgery and is totally meaningless from a journalistic point of view.

Heyho. Why should we worry? Why should we hold to account an organisation where I can see at least ten executives on £100,000-per-year or more yet they cannot sort out its most basic database for successful operation? Is it me?

What is also worrying is the way the Commissioner hoodwinked me into thinking I had won my case only to leave me pondering yet another appeal to the Tribunal.

JOB - Information Security Officer - £29k - Newcastle

University of Newcastle - Information Security Officer - £29k - Newcastle

Closing date: February13, 2011.

Read the rest of this entry »

Return appeal to sender

Nothing special about the postal service

I don’t imagine that many Freedom of Information officers will have much sympathy for me, but I’d like to explain why the Information Commissioner is not currently my favourite organisation.

What has happened is that at the 11^th hour the Commissioner has mysteriously done a 180 degree turn and decided to reverse his decision which had been originally to uphold my appeal.

The first I knew of the Commissioner chickening out of a contest was when the Tribunal called me saying that as the original applicant I had ten days to carry on the case myself.

It all started ages ago when I was asked by a newspaper to make a request about the Royal Mail’s recorded delivery and special delivery services.

Specifically I wanted to know the number of complaints and the total amount of compensation relating to the two premium services.

Of course the Royal Mail refused my request claiming the information was protected under S.43 (Commercial Interests). I eventually appealed the case to the Information Commissioner who ordered disclosure. [Decision Notice].

The Royal Mail appealed the case and it was making its way to the Tribunal and I was not particularly anxious as I felt the S.43 claim was very weak.

Well, as I said I was rung up out of the blue by the Tribunal stating that new information had been provided by the Royal Mail just a few days before the hearing.

On sight of this new material the Information Commissioner threw in the towel and so I was asked if I wanted to take the case over at the last moment.

The Tribunal sent me – ironically by special delivery – two huge lever-arch folders of information that had been prepared for the Tribunal.

I’ve searched through this and try as I might I can’t see the document which in my opinion would make the Information Commissioner throw the towel in.

Anyhow as I already have two tribunals planned for this year relating to the BBC’s taxi spend and the Tate Modern’s penchant for exhibiting child porn I didn’t think I could stretch to a third – especially as I was thrown into it at the last moment.

I wrote to the Tribunal expressing my disappointment with the matter and the fact that when I have such a case I’m the only person there who isn’t getting paid. But seeing as all the Freedom of Information responses I get are free I don’t suppose there will be a lot of sympathy for me out there.

Iraq ‘cover up’

Sir Gus: Hands up everybody who thinks I deserve a knighthood.

Is it me? Why as I get older do things annoy me more, to the point where I can start shouting at the television.

The latest object of my middle-aged rage is Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O’Donnell. You’ve probably heard this story already but the details need repeating.

Sir John Chilcot is the person who was put in charge of the Iraq inquiry, which is investigating Britain’s role in the run-up to and the aftermath of the 2003 invasion.

As part of his remit to scrutinise the decisions that were made by the politicians at the time Sir John and the other members of his panel have had access to a blizzard of document and information.

Amongst them are notes of discussions and private memos relating to meetings between Tony Blair and George Bush – which you might have thought were probably quite important.

So much so that Sir John asked that he be allowed to make sections of them public – particularly as he would be questioning Tony Blair again about the issue on Friday.

Enter Sir Gus (why are they all Sirs I wonder?) who effectively put a veto on the matter and said the contents must remain secret.

So we have a Government inquiry where the Government have effectively muzzled the people they put in charge – something they said they wouldn’t do.

This is what Sir John said about the notes: “The inquiry recognises the privileged nature of those exchanges but, exceptionally, we sought disclosure of key extracts which illuminate Prime Minister Blair’s position at critical points.

“The inquiry is disappointed that the cabinet secretary was not willing to accede to this request.

“This means that in a narrow but important area the inquiry may not be able to publish as fully as it would wish the evidential basis for some of its comments and conclusions.”

It has been disclosed that Sir Gus contacted Mr Blair to seek permission to disclose the contents of the documents.

Reg Keys, whose son Tom was killed in Iraq, said: “If there is nothing controversial in them, why are they shamelessly covered up?”

What really bugs me is that it seems like a return to the bad old days before Freedom of Information when if somebody said you couldn’t have something you just had to lump it.

What if we don’t agree with Sir Gus? What if we think the extracts in the memos should be made public? Why should we protect the former Prime Minister and George Bush, who have both made a mint selling their stories of their time in charge?

It leaves me with only one thing for me to do, ask for the letters using Freedom of Information rules [here]

 and then if they refuse at least I can complain.

Come fly away with me - NOT

Seeing as he sues probably better not put a smarta*** caption

The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) is an organisation which has volunteered itself to become a new recruit to FoI whenever the Act spreads its wings to cover more bodies.

At the head of ACPO sits the plain-speaking Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde, who last year gave delegates at the ACPO Information Compliance Conference his views on Freedom of Information and its ramifications for forces in general.

To those who heard his speech it was probably fair to say that some journalists were not his favourite people.

Little did I know at the time that the marathon-running Sir Hugh has had a somewhat chequered relationship with both the press and the Freedom of Information Act.

Essentially this post is about an Information Commissioner’s decision notice relating to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) but to put it in context we need to appreciate some of the back story.

Before Sir Hugh’s lofty promotion to head up ACPO he was the top man at the PSNI and as such pocketed a salary of £180,000 and lived with his wife Lady Kathleen in a luxury £600,000 home.

As such he also claimed £75 for a wasp nest to be removed and £35.53p for a new window latch. Ironically he did pay for his own theft insurance, just in case he was burgled. This is all detailed in a Belfast Telegraph story [Perks of a Police Chief].

But what really got the press in Northern Ireland excited was the fact that Sir Hugh had a secret lover, who fell pregnant with his child, over the water in England. In articles he was quoted as saying his family were “supportive” of his affair.

This led to chit-chat about whether all his taxpayer-funded trips to England had been 100% necessary – or whether he was mixing pleasure with business so-to-speak.

[Why Sir Hugh’s out of Order], [Orde’s marathon sessions with lover] and [Orde steps out with new love] give a flavour of some of the atmosphere that was surrounding him at the time.

Throw into this mix a damaging and false story in Sunday World that Sir Hugh used PSNI money to fly his son to the US to attend St Patrick’s Day celebrations.

Sir Hugh sued for libel and the case was eventually settled with the policeman pocketing more than enough to buy a new pair of running shoes. [Police chief wins libel settlement].

With all that simmering away on the background somebody asked the PSNI if it had ever booked a flight on behalf of his son, even if his son eventually picked up the bill.

PSNI refused to either confirm or deny whether it held this information saying it was a breach of S.40(5) (personal information). Sir Hugh got involved because he himself told his force he did not want them to confirm or deny if it held the information. The applicant appealed the case and the Information Commissioner sided against Sir Hugh.

In the judgement he said: “It is the Commissioner’s view that, given that the request relates to information regarding the PSNI’s potential use of public resources to arrange travel arrangements on behalf of the former Chief Constable’s son, it was not reasonable for the former Chief Constable to expect the PSNI not to confirm or deny whether it held that information. Whilst acknowledging the expectations surrounding the right to a private family life, the Commissioner nevertheless considers that there is a significant expectation amongst the public regarding transparency about the use of public resources. In the Commissioner’s view it would have been reasonable to expect that the Chief Constable and his son would have recognised this fact and expected that the public authority to confirm or deny whether information was held in the circumstances.”

So PSNI were ordered to say if it held any such information and if it did to then go on to consider a further question which probed the details of what these flights might have been.

So when I hear Sir Hugh quoted about ACPO’s entrance into the FoI club saying: “Any organisation that operates as part of a key public service should be accountable and open to public scrutiny.” You can’t help but be a little cynical.

Clearly I may be more cynical than the next man but just how much of a FoI supporter is he when he has been shown to have incorrectly used the Act to try to shield himself and his family from the glare of public scrutiny.

Some people might have a lot of sympathy for him, saying he and his family had more than their fair share of public scrutiny. Others might say he brought it on himself.

You can read the decision notice [here] and I’ve asked to find out what eventually happened with this case [here].