A Right to Know on BBC Radio 4
Sep 30, 2005 Access Laws
Radio 4 Tuesday 27th Sept – repeated Sunday 2 October at 5pm and available online (for a week or so afterward) at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/radio4_aod.shtml?radio4/right_to_know
This was an interesting programme in which investigative reporter Michael Crick and producer Martin Rosenbaum made a number of FOI requests to test the new Freedom of Information laws. They were successful in some [...]
Costly Crown Copyright
Sep 27, 2005 Articles
Why we must cut the costly Crown copyright
The Times Law section, 27 September 2005
By Heather Brooke
The Green Party called for the repeal of Crown Copyright at its recent party conference, the latest in a growing campaign to abolish restrictive copyrights on public sector information and encourage greater re-use by citizens and business.
In an unusual [...]
Cabinet Office Statement on Trading Funds
Sep 27, 2005 Central Government
Trading funds are public bodies mandated to make money using public sector information. Unfortunately, they hold the most useful data – land registration (held by the Land Registry), mapping (Ordnance Survey), weather (Meteorological Office) and sea charts (UK Hydrographic Office) – so charging hefty fees greatly stifles many civic projects.
I received this statement from [...]
Hurricane Katrina and FOI
Sep 12, 2005 Environment
The poor response to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, USA shows in stark terms the consequences of diverting all money to the war on terror while ignoring more prosaic realities at home. America is not unique in diverting funds this way. In the UK, we have seen parts of London stripped bare as police are [...]
