Taking Out The Trash

What counts as easily available?

About a month ago I wrote on a government database aimed at naming and shaming those companies which refused to pay out industrial tribunal claims.

Unfortunately you had to know the name of either party involved to carry out a search and each seach costs you £8 and if you wanted bulk access (as credit reference agencies do) you would have to pay even more and there were restrictions on how the data could be used and, and, and.... basically this was a useless effort at naming and shaming.

So I put a Freedom of Information request in to the Ministry if Justice asking for a copy of the database.

Today I got a response (over the 20 working day limit but we'll let that pass).

My request was refused under section 21 which says that you don't have to give out the info if it is already easily accessible. Interestingly, Section 21 doesn't have a public interest defence.

I've asked for a review of their refusal arguing that the information isn't freely accessible.

There were, at the last count, 161 companies on the database. With a fee of £8 a search it would cost me £1,288 to discover all their details. This is more than the MoJ could reasonably be asked to spend complying with a FOI request.

The Information Commissioner has already ruled that, while charging for access does not in itself mean information is inaccessible, excessive fees do constitute a barrier. See this ruling which has gone to appeal and in particular paragraph 35 (thank you FOI News for this).

I would argue that exactly the same situation applies here where it would cost me an excessive amount to obtain the information requested and more than guidelines say the MoJ should spend complying with FOI requests.

Further, the database can only be search once you have a name of either party involved. Therefore access is only open to those with prior information and obtaining that would likely require extra cost. The average user cannot freely access this database, even if it was free, because they would have no information to input to start the search.

The database itself is so constructed to be inaccessible unless you can pay a large sum of money and have a name as a starting point. This set up and the refusal to release the information, I would suggest, frustrates a primary reason for why the database was established in the first place.

Well, we'll see how my appeal fares, but it is annoying at a very basic level that government data, collected and maintained on our behalf, isn't made more easily available. Anyhow I thought that justice must not only be done, but seen to be done.

It would take five minutes to copy that database and send me a spreadsheet and that would sort it out. Or am I being naive?

Naming and shaming

Back on April 1, Justice Minister Bridget Prentice announced a new register to name and shame employers who don’t pay tribunal awards.
Prentice said: "A few unscrupulous individuals are defying or delaying payment after tribunal rulings and we will not hesitate to name and shame them.
“Delays like this prolong the ordeal and force successful claimants to continue with court action to recover their money. This is particular unacceptable following an employment tribunal."
The new register certainly had the support of the TUC. General Secretary Brendan Barber said: “This register will help put bad employers in the spotlight by naming and shaming those who fail to pay up when they lose employment tribunals.
“But action against bad employers shouldn't stop here, and the Government must put systems in place to ensure that everyone who wins an employment tribunal award actually receives it.
“Too many people are still hit by the double whammy of employers acting illegally and then refusing to pay when they are caught.”
But is the register actually performing its much-trumpeted task of naming and shaming?
When I asked for a list of the companies on the defaulters register the Ministry of Justice said: “The Register actually doesn't work that way.
“You have to have the names first before you can do a search, or you will not get a result. You can't actually do a personal search on the type of award and get a list of people or organisations back.”
The Register of Judgments, Orders and Fines lists items such as county court judgments, as well as tribunal awards. Tribunals cover not just employment hearings but also so-called First-Tier tribunals such as the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board.
The register is maintained by the Registry Trust Ltd (RTL), a not-for-profit company contracted by the Ministry of Justice.
The Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “Of course you can apply to RTL to purchase the full information on a commercial basis from the Register (as the credit reference agencies do) but there are contractual restrictions on who can purchase the data and how it can be used.
“Given that the register is designed as a proportionate deterrent, there would be data protection issues we would need to clarify with the Information Commissioner (and we will do on the back of this query) to establish where the register stands with regards to details being provided to the media.”
You can of course, do individual searches, provided you know the company’s name, at £8 a go. But that is an unwieldy deterrence.
The Ministry of Justice was able to say that there are 161 companies were on the register who had not honoured tribunal awards and 150 were employment tribunal award defaulters.
The average amount defaulted on was £6,101.85 with the lowest being £50 and the highest £50,340
I've put in a Freedom of Information request for a copy of this public database which may reveal which firm has declined to pay £50,000 awarded against it.

Back on the chain gang

More than three years ago I thought I'd ask the prison service a relatively simple question. What kind of contracts do individual prisons hold with private companies for inmates to carry out work?

Not so simple apparently, as it took a ruling from the Information Commissioner to force them to answer.

Now The Guardian has published the first fruits of the investigation sparked by that question and the digging of myself and my colleague Richard Cookson.

Prisoners will be able to earn "real wages" for doing "real work" in jail under radical new plans being drawn up by the Conservatives and penal reformers.

The shadow justice minister, Edward Garnier, [note: now replaced in this role by Alan Duncan] said the Tory party will encourage more private companies and charities to offer work and training in jails if it wins the next election.

"I want to see prisoners doing real work, not mere time-filling, and I want to see them earning wages that will incentivise them into seeing a connection between effort and reward," he said.

The announcement comes as Society Guardian reveals that inmates in UK jails are working for some of Britain's best-known brands for as little as £4 a week. Household names including Virgin Atlantic, Monarch Airlines, Speedy Hire, Travis Perkins and book publisher Macmillan are benefiting from work carried out by prisoners in England and Wales. More than 100 smaller companies are using prison labour to produce everything from holiday brochures, novelty name-tags and balloons to industrial mouldings and, ironically, security chains.

There is an excellent piece by prison writer Eric Allison to accompany our Guardian articles.

Richard and I have put together our own web site looking at this issue and there is much to discuss:
What companies have contracts for prison labour?
How effective are these contracts?
How much to companies do make from prison labour?
Why are prisoners not subject to the minimum wage?
Are consumers aware of how much prison labour is used?

The Conservatives have been spending a lot of time thinking about prison reform and have come up with some radical suggestions about how they'd like to reform the prison service.

The National Offender Management Service would be scrapped and as for the wages paid to prisoners:

"Under the supervision of the prison governor, some of the money would go to support their dependents on the outside – who might otherwise lose their tenancies or default on mortgages and thus get thrown on to the welfare system at additional public expense – some would be paid into a victims' fund, and a small proportion would be kept by the governor to enable the prisoner to buy necessities in prison," said Edward Garnier.

The Tories plan to double the number of prisoners working behind bars to 20,000 in an effort to teach skills that mean they don't head straight back into  re-offending.

It seems hard to argue with their assertion that prison policy under Labour has become one soley of managing overcrowding.

So how do progressive politicians plan to counter these penal arguments?

Blair Peach report to be made public

Via Pickled Politics, Sky News report that the report by then Commander John Cass into the death of Blair Peach is to be made public.

Peach died at an anti NF rally and it has long been rumoured that officers from the Met's notorious SPG were responsible for the head injuries which killed him.

A couple of years ago I made an FOI request to the Met for the Cass report. Usually it takes the full 20 days before you hear if the info you want exists; let alone if they'll release it. This time, almost by return of post, I got a firm 'no' citing the fact that the case was still open and the report could prejudice any investigation.

Sky News says:

"legal advisers to Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson have indicated he is obliged to publish the report under Freedom of Information laws, and this could happen before the end of the year."

It seems that an organisation's claim for witholding information under FOI exemptions is really only as strong as its will to resist, above and beyond purely legal definitions. It is also dependent on the level of pressure that can be applied. The release of the Government's Lockerbie correspondence being a case in point.

Cabinet Committee on domestic subversion

And it's nice to come back and find that, while various police forces are still refusing to hand over info requested under the FOI; the Cabinet Office has agreed to one of my requests.

As you can see below.
FOI 266 484

Thursday round-up

Ferociously busy with work so lax with the posting but here are a few items:

I'm looking at putting together an online resource which will collate all the information published regarding the blacklisting scandal. This is in conjunction with Spinwatch. If you've got info/ideas which you think should be on such a site let me know. Meanwhile a Blacklisting Support Group has been set up. See my article in tomorrow's Tribune or a piece on Labournet.

Since January 26 2006: Two new children for me, a new president for America, a new Prime Minister for Great Britain, Spurs still providing comedy light relief for football fans. It's also the day I put in an FOI request to the National Offender Management Service (NOMS). Yesterday I got a letter from the ICO saying they upheld my appeal that NOMS should release me the info I asked for.
Three-and-a-half years. Including 250 days for them to carry out an internal review when the ICO says it should take 40 at most. Shouldn't be surprised as the BBC's Martin Rosenbaum made  clear a year ago.
Hopefully the results are going to end up in a newspaper article so that will be some satisfaction.

Finaly: via a tweet from Tom Watson MP this story about state-sponsored spyware in Blackberrys. Why would you call your surveillance app Interceptor though? Doesn't that kind of give the game away?

You can audit the police

Just back from the Centre for Investigative Journalism summer school with lots of ideas and memories of seeing people in London wandering around with surgical face masks on. (Those crazy city folk).
My starter for ten is: from Monday July 20 you can audit Avon and Somerset Police.
Once a year, for 20 working days, this freedom of information legislation comes into effect and for the cops it starts in, ooh, about 18 minutes.
As the Orchard News Bureau's helpful web site explains:

The Audit Commission Act 1998
Section 15 of the Act enables electors and taxpayers of a particular borough or police authority area to inspect and make their own copies of council and police authority accounts.
These rights of inspection extend beyond the authority supplying data spreadsheets, listing income and expenditure, on request.
The public has a right to see the detailed contracts, invoices, receipts, books and bills that relate to the accounts of the recent financial year.

They've got guidance on how to do this.

So, want to see the receipts for the chief constable's expenses claims or maybe the contracts for services with Southwest One? Request away.
And if you'd prefer to have a look at Bristol City Council's paperwork then its open access period starts on July 27. Both Bath and Wiltshire councils have already started and Wilthire police also begins tomorrow. So get cracking (and let me know how you get on).

Judges behaving badly

I thought that all people were equal before the law but it seems some are more equal than others.

The Guardian put in a request for the names of judges who had been disciplined. More than 170 members of the judiciary have been found to have misbehaved in the last decade but their names (and what they did) are secret.

Apparently it would affect their ability to do their job if such information was published. It seems we can't be trusted to know who or why or have little idea of even the process so we can determine if it is efficient or effective.

An appeal by the Guardian against the refusal of its Freedom of Information request was rejected today. A copy of the decision can be seen here.

Reporter Rob Evans has written a spirited repost to this in which he says:

This is an outrageous decision. Judges are highly paid public servants whose conduct in court and (to an extent) out of court must be above reproach: it is fundamental that the public should know how complaints against judges are resolved and the reasons why particular judges have been reprimanded or sacked.

and it also gives some useful background on the case. If you think Parliament had learnt from the expenses scandal about fighting FoI cases, think again.

Rob ends the piece saying:

If you know of any cases in which judges have misbehaved, please contact me on rob.evans@guardian.co.uk

And perhaps that is the way forward on this one as taking it to appeal is just too expensive. Let's see what data can be gathered the old fashioned way. Here's one to start off with about the suspension of Avon Coroner Paul Forrest who has now made his own complaint. I should stress that no-one had been found guilty of anything - but if they were, how much would we be allowed to know?

Update: Sarah Ditum makes a nice comparison with the case of police blogger NightJack outed needlessly by the The Times. Paul Bradshaw offers advice for anonymous bloggers.

Burning your money (and drowning and tearing it)

I could do with a better hit rate on my Freedom of Information requests. It's pretty good but even the ones answered don't always reveal much. (Hopefuly this will improve my hit rate)
Below is a letter I got from the Bank of England after I asked them what kind of excuses people gave when they sent in damaged notes and asked for new ones. I thought it could lead to nice little diary story. Might still do.
Anyway, they couldn't answer properly because so many people sent in notes it would take them ages to go through the individual forms. So on the second page you see a breakdown by category and the value of money. This post also lets me roadtest Scribd.
There are a lot of careless people out there.
Bank of England

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Business & Economics Research information bank

Seven lessons for FoI

A dispassionate and comprehensive analysis of lessons to be drawn for Freedom of Information from the MPs' expenses row by Martin Rosenbaum.

Lesson 7 is:

On a more journalistic note, the Telegraph has placed an enormous quantity of data and level of detail in the public domain during this period, well in excess of what is normal even for a very big, long-running story.....The relevance of this for FOI-based journalism is that information requests can often extract large amounts of data, whose full significance is not immediately apparent. In the future, we may see more examples (although presumably on a much lesser scale) of the media publishing quantities of material without telling their audience what the "story" is

We may be feasting off this information for some time to come as the significance of every cheque stub and moat receipt becomes clear. And then there is the analysis which looks at claim by party, region, job or majority. For fans of computer assisted reporting there is more gold to be found.