Friday 11 January 2008

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION THE BBC WAY

A couple of days ago I posted on how I was having a little bit of trouble with a couple of Freedom of Information enquires. http://thenorthernherald.blogspot.com/2008/01/your-right-to-know.html. Yesterday I received a reply and the information I outlined was not what I hoped it would be. That one is now dead as they say. However, I am still having trouble with a second, based around how individual health regions collate spending figures per head on cancer patients. Back to the web again, and whilst I didn’t get the answer I was looking for, I came across another good site.

This time it’s the BBC’s legal correspondent Martin Rosenbaum and his “Open Secrets Site” http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/opensecrets/.

The site has been pretty slow of late due to his TV commitments, but yesterday contained an interesting post concerning a problem he has had with the Metropolitan Police in London. Refusing to answer his initial enquiry, Rosenbaum referred his correspondence to the Chief Information Officer, who judged that the information should be released. What followed is an interesting lesson as to how the Met construct their press releases, trying to anticipate what the press might ask.

This is a good site, offering an interesting insight into how the police have adopted media spin and all its trappings.

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