Vital evidence of how the govt makes decisions – on #Covid19, on #Brexit, on private contracts – is being lost irretrievably. Not only is it undemocratic, but it’s unlawful. Which is why we decided to take action with the brilliant team @Foxglovelegal
This follows a 2 year campaign by @iainoverton to get an answer to the q: are special advisers using encrypted software apps such as Whatsapp to conduct govt business? The request was made under the #FOI act. bylinetimes.com/2021/06/30/gov…
Tldr: 2 years, 50 FOI requests, 5 internal reviews and an ongoing complaint with @ICOnews later, the question has yet to be answered. The FOI act states that everybody has a right to access official info but the legislation is no longer fit for purpose
A year ago the Bodley’s Librarian & head of Digital Preservation Coalition @richove sounded the alarm about senior ministers using apps designed for teenagers who didn't wish their messages to be read by their parents. Why aren’t we listening? ft.com/content/d7f10e…
We’ve launched a petition with @Foxglovelegal calling on Boris Johnson to ban the use of disappearing messages across govt & to respect the Freedom of Information Act. Every signature helps support our case foxglove.org.uk/campaigns/bori…
Transparency is key to the functioning of a normal democracy. It’s at the heart of our mission @allthecitizens & it’s why we intend to pursue this in court. If you would like to support our work, please consider subscribing to our newsletter keepingthereceipts.substack.com/welcome
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Cutting universal credit by £20 a week is an “unconscionable” move that breaches international human rights law and is likely to trigger an explosion of poverty, the United Nations’ poverty envoy has said theguardian.com/society/2021/s…
Join us on @tiktok_uk here…(New to TikTok? Don’t worry. So are we.)
Is the Secretary for Work and Pensions Thérèse Coffey unaware that lots of people on #UniversalCredit already work themselves to the bone and still can't make ends meet?
And that it actually would take up to 9 extra working hours for #UniversalCredit claimants to recoup their £20-a-week benefit cut? And that this cut is predicted to plunge half a million more people into poverty, including 200,000 children? independent.co.uk/news/uk/politi…
An investigation by @AllTheCitizens has uncovered a group of anti-vaxxers designing fake NHS advice leaflets for members to print and share outside schools across the country. 2/7
The NHS-style leaflet contains six lies about the Covid virus and vaccine which have variously been debunked by the Department of Health and @FullFact 3/7
Department of Health (test & trace) rush to replace Adult Social Care dashboard software run by controversial US firm Palantir. After only using it for one year, they are shifting to an in-house model developed by BAE Systems.
THREAD:
A newly published contract from DHSC (T&T) reveals that, after only having installed the American analytical firm’s software in 2020, the department is now spending £100k to migrate an entirely new data-analytics platform designed to process Covid-19 data. contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/notice/bc37a8e…
The dashboard itself, part of Palantir’s larger Covid-19 data-store work within the NHS, is aimed at combining “data from the Capacity Tracker and other sources, allowing critical data to be viewed in real time, at national, regional, and local levels” gov.uk/government/pub…
More than a quarter of ‘elite’ Conservative Party donors (giving a minimum of £100,000 in a single donation) have been given a title or honour, raising fresh concerns of a ‘cash for honours’ scandal at the heart of government - from @BylineBITE and @AllTheCitizens
Of the Tory party’s 20 biggest donors since 2010 – individuals donating more than £1.5 million – 11 (55%) hold some form of honour. 10 were awarded these in the last decade
Of 259 donors who gave £100,000+ (where info is available), 67 (26%) hold an honour, title or peerage.
Also, almost all of the 67 decorated donors (96% or 64) were given their titles or honours by the Tories in the last decade - either through New Year, Birthday or Prime Minister’s Resignation Honours or made a life peer by the leader of the Conservative Party.