HIPs replacement
Nov 22, 2007 Freedom of Information
The Association of Home Information Pack Providers today welcomed the extension of HIPs to all house sales.
Which just goes to prove one thing: as soon as the government provides an opportunity for rent-seeking behaviour, a lobby group will spring up to protect this nice little fleecing of the public.
The Government claims that Home Information [...]
Wholesale data theft
Nov 21, 2007 Access Laws
The loss of 25 million people’s personal records held by the UK tax authority illustrates the danger of keeping large, centralised databases.
Regardless of whether or not the data (which was burned onto CDs by a junior employee and lost in the post) falls into criminal hands and leads to wholesale identity theft, the sheer [...]
New info on farmers’ subsidies
Nov 15, 2007 Environment
The amount of state aid given to each farmer for looking after landscape and wildlife is be made public for the first time according to an article in today’s Times. The article states the information is to be released today on the website of the Government’s landscape adviser Natural England. The information is to [...]
New WWI records available from National Archives
Nov 12, 2007 Useful sites
The ‘Burnt’ records are First World War soldiers’ records that were literally burnt during the Blitz and for the first time they are now available to search online. The name search is free but there is a charge to download records.
Most surnames starting A to C are now available via Ancestry.co.uk.
Public sector fat cats
Nov 12, 2007 Central Government, FOI in the news
A report published yesterday by the Taxpayers’ Alliance found that the 300 highest earners employed by the state took home £237,564 each on average – an increase of 12.8 per cent; 17 employees raked in more than £500,000.
The bloated salaries come at a time when Prime Minister Gordon Brown has insisted on a 2 per [...]
Report on Met Police shooting published
Nov 8, 2007 Law Enforcement
The Stockwell 1 report by the Independent Police Complaints Commission has finally been published today, more than two years after the Metropolitan Police shot dead innocent Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes on 22 July 2005. The delay is a result of the antiquated belief manifest in the English legal system that the only way to [...]
Olympic contracts
Nov 8, 2007 Central Government, Freedom of Information
It was reported today that the cost of Olympic stadium has nearly doubled from £280 million to £496 million. As part of my ongoing investigation into Olympic spending, I’ve added two new databases to the secret squirrel section with information about contracts awarded by the Olympic Delivery Authority. One lists all contracts from the 12-months [...]
Article: Signs of disrespect
Nov 8, 2007 Articles
A sign of the times: brazen contempt for you and me
The Times, November 8, 2007
After you read this you’ll see them everywhere – like a newly learnt word that crops up all over the place when previously you could swear you’d never seen it before.
Signs of disrespect (SODs) are found in all the worst [...]
