Yes, but what are your plans if a DRAGON attacks? Brits are very concerned about the potential for life-threatening incidents involving dragon attacks, asteroid crashes and ghostly manifestations and they want their local council to do something about it, if their FoI requests are anything to go by. A dragon in Game of Thrones England’s Local Government Association has …
It's concerning that such a "looks at what these fools are asking!" piece includes asteroid impacts. They clearly think that is a daft concern. Whereas it's quite a logical worry, though a local council is not the place to raise it. Big asteroid or comet strikes are infrequent but do happen and if big enough would cause widespread death and destruction. A calculation of chance of happening in one year x deaths if it does raises a big enough number to have a plan for.
The problem is - given that the strike area is effectively random - that this is something that is better dealt with at a national or international level. After all, if a big one lands on your town it won't be much help the council having a plan. So the FOI request/lobbying would be better directed at the local MP or MEP rather than the local council.
...It's concerning that such a "looks at what these fools are asking!" piece includes asteroid impacts. They clearly think that is a daft concern. Whereas it's quite a logical worry, though a local council is not the place to raise it...
Actually, it's quite reasonable. It's very sensible to have plans for what would happen in the event of a major natural disaster of any kind happening sufficiently nearby for survivors to be likely to arrive in the area in large numbers. If I were a council I would expect my plans would be:
1 - in the event of being hit by an asteroid: go up in smoke.
2 - in the event of a nearby county/country being hit: prepare lists of useful services and places of refuge, move as many local people out as I could, contact central government and offer the services I had documented.
The purpose behind PR like this is to push the story "OMG we are wasting so much money on FOI requests, look at this nonsense we have to put up with", with the aim of limiting or reducing FOI.
What it doesn't show is whether we are getting value for money by allowing requests like this, because it also allows proper investigative journalism - the kind Private Eye does, not the "Fake Sheikh" red top investigative journalism.
"This can be followed by a FOI request that asks how many FOI requests where considered 'japes' vs how many were genuine." Or how many are a precursor to a sales pitch, which seems to be the large majority of the requests I have to process. Annoyingly, I would tell them what they wanted to know over the phone but for some unknown reason they think an FoI is a better route. Unfortunately it wastes more of my time than a conversation on the phone when you do your sales pitch.
Another clever trick is to release the FOI data to everyone - I mean you can't have too much openness and transparency can you?
This means that a real investigative journalist that spends time tracking down a story and finding out what information to request, is then scooped by red-tops running out a quick story of the scandal - before the detailed story can be written.
Re: simple answer to requests:
That's not an answer to an FoI request. An FoI request makes you trawl through a huge pile of documents and emails and answer the question "what have you discussed/said/decided/planned/thought about *this*?"
(Besides, to come up with that "10%" figure, you'd have to go through a whole feasibility study, project plan, and a whole pile more expensive activity. It'd take months, in itself, just to come up with a number like that, unless you pull it straight out of your backside.)
However, the FoIA contains an exemption for "vexatious requests", which are fairly broadly defined and it seems to me that authorities could get away with filing several of these in that particular bin, if they wanted to. Certainly the one about dragons.
Personally, I think the FoIA contained an own goal in making requests "free". The pre-existing Data Protection Act allowed organisations to charge a "reasonable" administrative fee for tracking down and handing out information - something like twenty or thirty quid - which I think is reasonable, while also enough of a bar to deter the most frivolous of these loons.
...authorities could get away with filing several of these in that particular bin, if they wanted to. Certainly the one about dragons....
But I WANT to respond to the one about dragons!
At the moment I'm not too sure if I would use the RAF, a staunch man of Laketown with a special arrow, or Pratchett's Lady Sybil Deirdre Olgivanna Ramkin-Vimes....
It does seem a perfectly legitimate inquiry to me - particularly if it was requested by a journalist who already knows it has happened at least once and was therefore trying to ascertain how often it happens in order to report the matter accurately.
Really, it's quite simple: arm the citizenry. You never hear of dragon attacks in the USA because citizens may legally own .50-cal hunting rifles. Really, do you think that these things are for deer?? No, the rifles are for dragons and whales. (No, we don't use them on the Ogre battle tank. We trap those when they're in season.)
" No, the rifles are for dragons and whales" - .50 cal rifles don't work on skywhales. Originally built as a part of Canberra's bad art program, it escaped and has been terrorising the public for years. No matter how often we fire off the canon (disguised as a ceremonial salute to visiting dignitaries),we have never been able to get rid of it.
"All staff are required to complete at least 50 hours of mandatory Skyrim and are prepared to deal with incidents involving Dragons, Trolls and Giants. Your council - Working Hard for You!"
Yeah, yeah -- we know damned well that those supposed 'radar' domes are actually where the M.O.D. house our very own attack Unicorns.
"... which distracts from that can affect the value for money that taxpayers receive." - what no one wanted to admit was that efficiency increased when everyone was running around answering FoI requests rather than doing their jobs!
And, to be fair, the asteroid one (meteorite) possibly wasn't the most stupid question...
And, to be fair, the asteroid one (meteorite) possibly wasn't the most stupid question...
There's a difference between asking about legitimate contingency planning, the public interest of where taxpayers' money is being spent (i.e. the exorcisms etc) and the plain ridiculous. The problem is that they always get lumped together into one "crazy" category regardless of whether the individual questions belong there or not.
As for the asteroids, I see a direct correlation with a question I asked informally at a BBC local radio open day a few years back. I asked if the station and transmitter were EMP hardened against nuclear strike. It always used to be a cornerstone of civil defence planning during the cold war, but the response I got was simply a look of utter bewilderment, "as if that's going to happen".
I think it used to be similar with the Emergency Planning in local authorities, but then they decided to get rid of the radios and aerials from the town halls and the radios.
I think they now plan to rely on mobile phones, which won't have a chance, and amateur radio which will also mostly be fried if a nuke hits.
Once whilst temping for the council I had a customer tell me we could save a fortune on fuel by moving all bin depots to the top of hills (we were in Yorkshire) and just letting the bin lorries run down the hills and use the momentum to crest the next hill, and wanted to know why we hadn't thought f implementing this practice.
Nah dragon attack probably isn't the most stupid request.
I'm not sure about this. My council was asked how many houses had licences to keep lions and the like, but if I do a search on whatdotheyknow.com - which is where most FOI requests are created - I don't get any results.
Mind you, I trust my local council as far as I could throw the Clown Hall...
how many times it had paid for an exorcist, psychic or religious healer...
If I had reason to believe they were wasting money on that type of crap it would not be a strange question, just one they would not want to answer.
"many requests were also for information that was freely available on council websites"
On an unlinked page, with black text on black, locked with a password of BewareOfTheLeppard
I think a couple of the previous OP's were dead right.
Most of the example questions were IMO perfectly legitimate.
So how much money HAVE the council wasted on exorcisms/paranormal investigations pandering to the terminally superstitious? None? well good for them.
Chipped any kids? no? again good for them, but given the normal council's control freakery not a completely outlandish question to ask.
Asteroid strike? "well yes we've wasted £10,000 on a consultant to tell us what to do, i.e. put our heads between our knees and kiss our asses goodbye" maybe not true but I've seen councils waste money on even more stupid ideas.
"A psychic was paid £60 by a council to rid a County Durham home of a "poltergeist" after ghostly goings-on."
Meh, I would have done it for a free lunch.
I can absolutely guarantee that no house I have ever been in has ever demonstrated provable supernatural phenomenon afterwards*.
*Or previous to my visit for that matter, but people hate to hear that!
...and keep asking "dumb" questions. I know of one government dept that did something so unbelievable that you would imagine it was an urban myth. I can't even mention it, but it was a pant wetter. Official bodies are usually only a few committee meetings away from circling the drain of chaos and sometimes they plop in before they realise it.
Given the amount of building damage and broken glass in Siberia last year, there's some merit in asking such questions - but it's on par with preparedness for a richter 6 earthquake.
(Don't laugh: The Southeast of England has a history of quakes this size and the last one happened before brick buildings were common: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1580_Dover_Straits_earthquake )
"Ghosts are also a hot topic for Brits, with Rossendale Council answering questions on how many times it had paid for an exorcist, psychic or religious healer ..."
You all may scoff at this, but it's a real problem!. I personally have been haunted by a ghostly apparition every morning since I was twelve. Watching your bed sheet elevating by itself when you aren't yet totally awake is a distressing experience!
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