It wasn’t meant to be like this. Remember the Alert Levels (the ‘Nandos chart’)? The whole idea of that was to set some sort of policy – a roadmap if you will – of how we get out of a national lockdown. Introducing… Covid Alert Levels. 12 May 2020. And remember this? The gentle ski …
Continue reading “A review of where we are with UK Covid restrictions. With apologies to Nandos.”
I have received a copy of the following letter from Public Health England to Local Authorities setting out the data sources available to local authories and the public. The letter is dated 9 July 2020 and I have redacted certain information. This should be useful for people wishing to understand what data is (and was) …
Continue reading “Data Sources for COVID-19 in England – Letter from PHE to Local Authorities”
The ‘℮’ symbol, or the ‘e-mark’ is a symbol you will see on packaging such as tins or packets in Europe. Millions of us will see this symbol every day, but what does it actually mean? The raison d’etre for the e-mark comes from the problem of selling goods to the public. We would all like to …
Parkrun is an organization that coordinates a series of 5km runs for the public. Crucially, there is no charge for participating in these runs, and this has contributed to over 1 million people registering themselves as runners. It does good, doesn’t take a profit, and generally is regarded as a Good Thing. Generally, the locations at …
Continue reading “Parkrun Freedom of Information Act Release: Public Policy Gone Bad”
Unfortunately, our Byelaws have been lost. The Government can’t find them. They are not even on display: “But the plans were on display . . .” “On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.” “That’s the display department.” “With a torch.” “Ah, well …
The Freedom of Information Act is a thing of beauty. So much so that Tony Blair described the prime minister that introduced the Act as an ‘idiot, a ‘naive, foolish, irresponsible nincompoop’. Government departments have now taken it upon themselves to publish a list of requests (although not necessarily refused requests – more of that …
Continue reading “Into the Depths of the Freedom of Information Act”
