Freedom of information and ‘vexatious’ requests — The case of Scottish local government

This paper investigates the cost and incidence of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests within local authorities in Scotland and in particular, the cost and incidence of requests which have been defined as ‘vexatious’ in order to investigate if the negative perceptions surrounding the cost and misuse of the legislation are justified. Additionally, the criteria and guidelines that local authorities are using to define ‘vexatious’ are also examined. The approach taken to the research in this study is a survey of the 32 local authorities in Scotland using freedom of information requests as the data collection method. The findings from the survey revealed that none of the local authorities were keeping records of costs relating to FOI requests. However, 80% were keeping records of numbers of requests. One third of authorities that kept records of ‘vexatious’ requests had experienced such a request. However, the actual number of ‘vexatious’ requests received were extremely low. The findings highlight the difficulties in recording cost data and the general lack of record keeping within organisations. The findings also indicate a very low incidence of ‘vexatious’ requests and suggest that the ‘vexatious’ definition may be applied inappropriately by public authorities

A picture tells a thousand words: A content analysis of concussion-related images online.

BACKGROUND AND AIM: Recently image-sharing social media platforms have become a popular medium for sharing health-related images and associated information. However within the field of sports medicine, and more specifically sports related concussion, the content of images and meta-data shared through these popular platforms have not been investigated. The aim of this study was to analyse the content of concussion-related images and its accompanying meta-data on image-sharing social media platforms. METHODS: We retrieved 300 images from Pinterest, Instagram and Flickr by using a standardised search strategy. All images were screened and duplicate images were removed. We excluded images if they were: non-static images; illustrations; animations; or screenshots. The content and characteristics of each image was evaluated using a customised coding scheme to determine major content themes, and images were referenced to the current international concussion management guidelines. RESULTS: From 300 potentially relevant images, 176 images were included for analysis; 70 from Pinterest, 63 from Flickr, and 43 from Instagram. Most images were of another person or a scene (64%), with the primary content depicting injured individuals (39%). The primary purposes of the images were to share a concussion-related incident (33%) and to dispense education (19%). For those images where it could be evaluated, the majority (91%) were found to reflect the Sports Concussion Assessment Tool 3 (SCAT3) guidelines. CONCLUSIONS: The ability to rapidly disseminate rich information though photos, images, and infographics to a wide-reaching audience suggests that image-sharing social media platforms could be used as an effective communication tool for sports concussion. Public health strategies could direct educative content to targeted populations via the use of image-sharing platforms. Further research is required to understand how image-sharing platforms can be used to effectively relay evidence-based information to patients and sports medicine clinicians

Are railways really that bad? An evaluation of rail systems performance in Europe with a focus on passenger rail

With a large number of railway development projects in Europe and worldwide, which once completed will be serving rail passengers of the future, this paper aims to take a step back and evaluate current railway systems performance. The objectives are to compare statistical data on various parameters of the railway system in a number of selected European countries and draw conclusions on the level of their performance when compared to the European average. Analyses of publically available statistical data, extracted from the Eurostat service at a European level will allow for a comparison of various indicators which influence the performance of the railway systems from an infrastructure and operational perspectives. The analyses will also allow identifying key performance indicators for the accurate assessment of the rail systems. The paper will highlight case studies for various parameters which are important to stakeholders of the railways, including infrastructure managers, rail operators, policy makers and the end users. This knowledge will be to the benefit of today’s railway industry as well as the rail systems of the future, as it will show trends drew upon existing data which might continue in the future

"The daily grunt": middle class bias and vested interests in the 'Getting in Early' and 'Why Can't They Read?' reports.

It is a long-standing and commonly held belief in the UK and elsewhere that the use of elite forms of language reflects superior intellect and education. Expert opinion from sociolinguistics, however, contends that such a view is the result of middle-class bias and cannot be scientifically justified. In the 1960s and 1970s,such luminaries as Labov (1969) and Trudgill (1975) were at pains to point out to educationalists, with some success, that this 'deficit 'view of working-class children's communicative competence is not a helpful one. However, a close reading of recent think-tank reports and policy papers on language and literacy teaching in schools reveals that the linguistic deficit hypothesis has resurfaced and is likely to influence present-day educational policy and practice. In this paper I examine in detail the findings, claims and recommendations of the reports and I argue that they are biased, poorly researched and reflect the vested interests of certain specialist groups, such as speech and language therapists and companies who sell literacy materials to schools. I further argue that we need to, once again, inject the debate with the social dimensions of educational failure, and we need to move away from the pathologisation of working-class children's language patterns

Swimming with captive dolphins: current debates and post-experience dissonance

Dolphins have widespread contemporary appeal and anthropomorphic social representations of dolphins have fuelled a growing desire in tourist populations to seek interaction with them. This paper is concerned with the staged performance of swim-with-dolphin interaction programmes in aquaria. Qualitative interviews with tourists who have swum with captive dolphins identified their immediate recollections and stressed the grace, size and power of dolphins, but also a belief that the experience was too staged, too short and too expensive. Post-purchase dissonance focused on concerns with the size of enclosures and about captivity, too many tricks, limited interpretation and unfulfilled expectations of a quality interaction

Saving and reproducing the nation: Struggles around right-wing politics of social reproduction, gender and race in austerity Europe

This article suggests the analytic lens of cultural, social and national reproduction to understand the centrality of gendered and ethnic relations, in particular a focus on family life in contemporary UK. Proposing a theoretical focus on reproduction, the article then provides some contextualisation with wider European experiences to show connections between the political articulations across the far-right and mainstream right-wing. It argues that there is much overlap between the far-right and mainstream rightwing, conservative gender and family ideologies, where contradictory aspects of their gender and family ideals (simultaneously progressive and traditional) are articulated as care for the nation's future. Care is then articulated for the purpose of racist activism and constructing governmental belonging. The racialized migrant family plays a central role in these debates, marking the boundaries of the nation. The article explores these issues in depth through the example of material and symbolic constructions of the racialized migrant family as undeserving of care, exemplified through the UK policy of No Recourse to Public Funding