Re: RNLI vs chuggers
'The British state is perfectly able to fund an adequate sea rescue service. Fortunately for it, the charity-funded RNLI gives it perfect cover for not bothering' See also Air Ambulances
213 publicly visible posts • joined 25 Jan 2018
While the Post Office are clearly at fault I find it interesting that Fujitsu seem to be getting pretty much a free pass for the absolute trash they designed and provided.
Yes I know the system is only as good as the spec and what was requested etc etc but its inconceivable that Fujitsu didn't know the system was an absolute car crash and didn't work as intended.
As they are asking for a comment/opinion it wouldn't be a valid FOI request anyway - it has to be for recorded information.
In my experience (FOI/DP is my day job) the Information Governance Team probably have responses they want to send but senior managers are basically being obstructive and wanting a different response so they are arguing the toss and delaying stuff.
Also they probably don't think it should be disclosed therefore aren't even looking for the information.
The United States has done more to uplift the human condition than any other nation on the face of the planet.... hmmm has it though? Has it really?
The printing press, the industrial revolution, sanitation systems, gunpowder, the computer, the jet engine... All invented/developed outside of the US and all have done way more to facilitate human development.
America and folk like you Dostoevsky (nice European name there) need to realise is that human development has been happening for many hundreds of years, not just since 1776
Except the LA will have to have 95% of users complete training annually to access NHS data for social care purposes.
Its more a case of the people sending the response being understaffed and being under pressure to meet service standards by getting the responses out as quickly as possible and the team sending the data to them being too lazy to do the prep work to extract the information
The trick with the 777 3-4-3 configuration is to book onto the back 2 rows where it is only 2-4-2 due to the narrowing of the fuselage.
The aisles are wider so you get more elbow room in an aisle seat and the window seats aren't as tight to the aircraft body.
You also get the bonus of the standing space by the rear doors to stretch your legs, look out of the window (at The Grand Canyon and Vegas for me as I was flying to LA) and the galley area where you can chat to the aircrew and get free reign over the drinks and snacks. BA have a very passable Brewdog IPA called Speedbird on their long haul flights along with all the shortbread you could consume in 10.5hrs.
The fact the disclosure log is unavailable doesn't stop people making requests so I am not sure why El Reg has asked that question of the PSNI.
All that is currently happening is that the PSNI aren't publishing the requests and responses on their website when they answer them.
They will still be issuing responses to the individuals who make a request or they are breaching FOI requirements.
Sorry to tell you but those would potentially be valid FOI requests.
They don't need to mention FOI or go to a central contact point. They just need to ask a question about/of the authority and go to the authority.
Member of the public wouldn't see the distinction between members and the LA being a separate entity (which potentially they are for IG purposes) and the ICO would very much consider an FOI submitted to a member as being submitted to the Council for the purposes of FOI.
I think your IG lead needs to do some staff training sharpish
Why exactly should you have the right to know the name of everyone who works in the public sector? And I mean a proper justifiable reason other than 'they are paid for by the taxpayer' because in my case its not true.
I work for a local authority but our service is paid for by income we generate so isn't funded by the taxpayer.
Finally if you had an ounce of intelligence you would know, certainly in the UK, all public sector salaries are already in the public domain.
You don't even need to complete the postal vote in the polling station. You can just hand the sealed envelope to the staff manning the station BUT only if it is in the correct LA area.
So for example in my Borough it is divided into 3 sections for the count and the envelope has to be handed in to a Polling Station taking their ballot box to the correct counting location for the Ward you are voting in.
Less of an issue for Parliamentary Elections as there is only one count location per constituency.
To a degree its worse than that.
When the Compensation scheme was set up you would assume it would be operated independently to ensure a fair process wouldn't you?
Well in this case no - the Post Office and Central Govt are responsible for operating and managing the compensation scheme so it has 100% been designed to operate as slowly and at as low a cost (in terms of payouts) as possible
The BA Monetary Penalty Notice (it is not and never has been a fine) in part was reduced because of Covid and the collapse of the travel industry and in part because for some daft reason the ICO sees fit to say what size they might issue a MPN for even before they have been through the statutory process.
The suggested MPN was based on a percentage of their turnover at the point it was announced. By the time the ICO had gone through the statutory process the backside had fallen out of the airline business and BA's turnover was much much smaller ergo their MPN was smaller.
That said the current incumbent IC, John Edwards, is a charlatan and more interested in soundbites and cosying up to the Government and big business than actually enforcing the law he is paid handsomely to oversee.
I mean its not as if most of us working in the Information Governance field haven't been saying since the Brexit vote that this would lead to us losing adequacy!!
The potential saving grace is that some larger companies will still operate to the standards of GDPR rather than the shoddy UK counterfeit version as if they operate in the EU then why would they go to the expense of running 2 different systems of information management?
That said this assumes the companies dont say 'sod this' and take their businesses out of the UK as it isnt worth the aggro.
This 'freeing from EU bureaucracy' will ultimately lead to less choice in financial services and the like as companies withdraw their products rom the UK but its OK, we have blue passports again (which we could always have had and are made in the EU)
The problem we have now is that back in the 70s, 80's and early 90's most, if not all MPs had been working elsewhere prior to rocking up at Westminster.
Now we have a class of professional politicians, many of which only have 'real world' experience as a parliamentary researcher or the like - they have never worked anywhere other than the Westminster bubble.
God forbid we go back to previous iterations of parliament where the Minister for Health was a health professional!!
Yes I know that wasn't always the case but a lot of the time it was and we can't say parliament was the worse for it, especially given the current bunch of chancers, fraudsters and charlatans on all sides of the House
There is no statutory requirement to have a formal data sharing process despite what the ICO may lead folk to believe.
Information Sharing Agreements are seen as a 'need to have' when in fact that isn't the case - they are best practice and a way for organisations to record/audit their processing and nothing more
I see this quite regularly at Archery comps where a lot of Archers use carbon/aluminium composite or full carbon arrows.
Catastrophic failures are more common with full carbons but carbon/aluminium arrows often split/crack.
My daughter's composite arrows split the second or third time she shot them as they had been hit by other arrows during a previous shoot and the point of damage just gave way as arrows by their nature flex when they leave the bow.
When they fully go they make an impressive noise that scares the brown stuff out of the rest of the shooting line :)
I had a very interesting chat with the then HO Junior Minister Andy 'King of the North' Burnham at the time.
He was responsible for ID Cards and wasn't particularly committed either way. The feeling I got was they saw the positives outweighing the negatives but as a rule they weren't overly sold on them either way.themselves