Author: Nick Booth

#hyperbbcwm Notes (part 2) of a discussion between BBC staff and hyperlocal bloggers in the West Midlands

The first table was covering issues of controversy (how to deal with) accuracy and the news agenda – or the broader question of who news is it?   Nick Booth took these slightly sketchy notes

Diane Smith of Stafford Direct
Diane Smith of Stafford Direct

Diane Smith has used the social network Stafford Direct to starts to challenge the way the mainstream media was telling the Story of the enquiry into deaths at the local hospital. Below she explains what she ste out to do – why she felt the mainstream media was getting things so wrong and what keeps here going:

Ian Little of the Tenbury Wells blog said the reason he got into blogging was the town council was not very transparent with closed meetings – local paper would cover the council from one point of view, my stories tended to be from the opposite point of view.

Should stuff be edited or not? Read more

#hyperbbcwm Notes (part 1) of a discussion between BBC staff and hyperlocal bloggers in the West Midlands

Gavin Wray’s notes from table 3

Table Three discussing hyperlocal blogs and the BBC
Table Three discussing hyperlocal blogs and the BBC - source podnosh on flickr

Access and archives

Bloggers mentioned copyright as the main barrier to exposing content in the BBC archives to a wider, and local, audience.

Frustrated when historical archives are copyrighted, preventing you sharing it with your audience. One volunteer wants to share old photos of areas around Birmingham city centre for others to reminisce, share stories or simply for curiousity. Copyrighted BBC content, in the iPlayer for example, prevents content being put in the public space for comment, discussion and consumption.

There is also a wealth of great archive content by the BBC, spanning decades of local media, that isn’t yet online. There’s lots of interest in this.

Video of Nicky Getgood talking with Robin Morley asking Read more

#madwd Housing session, notes.

Rough notes on the housing session at the Making a Difference with Data.

  • Dearth of stuff on housing.  is it because the information is inaccessible to difficult to collect or is it that it isn’t very interesting.
  • What is the next big thing like a crime map – could it be from housing?  Unique Property Reference Number – if these were freed up that would make a huge difference.
  • Land registry business model is at issue for how we can know stuff about the homes we live in.  You have to pay to put information and then people also pay to take information out!  We need a sensible charge when information is put in – and non to take it out.
  • that sort of change comes from “very dull pressures” around –  lumping them into one data corporation is the hope that this sort itself out.
  • Public land is difficult to get hold of.  CLG currently trying to pull together a database of public owned land.  PROD Public request to order Disposal being potentially revamped.
  • Work being done to empower residents to use online tools to hold power to account. cc’ing the world.   Birmingham civic dashboard mentioned – where are they spending the most money on housing repairs.
  • Supported housing has different issues – needs to have very good engagement re learning disabilities and other tenants – maybe not so good in older people’s housing?
  • We need to skill up active citizens to understand digital tech better – that will help them appreciate the value of data.
  • If you release more information you create demand for information – which is both a problem and an opportunity.
  • general needs you tend not to engage with residents unless they are being a nuisance – rent areas, anti social behaviour.
  • Dont argue that people are no online – this is 2011 and we need a glass half full view of just how many people are online.
  • Potential advantages to wi-fi ing neighbourhoods to improve organisational efficiency and allow local community web activity to flourish.
  • No standard required for web access to be included in home.
  • Choice based letting where you could put data about properties.
  • Report available on voids – re- let times rents etc. But that’s neighbourhood wide information.
  • Affordability maps – combine with private information?
  • Re let times to let people know how long they will have to wait on that waiting list.
  • Mapumental
  • People want to spend time with their clients rather than throw data into a computer.

#madwd Health and Social Care session, some notes from making a Difference with data

Here are some key points from the session on Health and Social Care (check som of this – facts not all checked)

  • Data from the Care Quality Commission,  conversations about scarping data from the site, told that individuals can query the site and find individual care homes, but it’s not set up so you can systematically compare.  Will shortly be available as raw data on scraperwiki. Individual reports are only available as pdfs – which causes a huge amount of work for data users.
  • Reports have lots of words in them – you cant compare all 28 outcomes.
  • Issues between health and social care – mainly to do with battles over budgets in local authorities plus changes in the structure of the health service.  Inspection regime is changing.
  • Huge problems with health service and different council services being able to share information. Systems are not compatible – and proprietary formats.  One local authority talked of 100 systems – no indicators any more so no more performance staff.  Who would port this information out.
  • Illustration of how local government officers suddenly have access to information when their councils publish information as open data –  they can find with google in a way that they couldn’t with internal systems.

  • Have we read the information revolution strategy from the department of health?  Big themes on choice – hospital you go to, you gp, treatments.
  • For social care people want to know how nice the staff are.
  • Car parking is a particular problem with hospitals
  • Private contractors provided by the four big companies that can’t be FOI’d and even joint ventures –  some people said that you can FOI if they’re delivering a public service.
  • From January local authorities are expected to publish new contracts.
  • Re health…discussion on the potential value of combining data re health outcomes with some information on taxi firms – quality fo service from transport etc etc.
  • How do you collate all this information together – individual contracts, care homes quality.
  • Supporting people ( eg ) outcomes data (now stopped )  captured information for 200,000 people who risked being homelessness and the national insurance numbers –  shows the revolving door problems re social services, drug action team etc etc.
  • Worrying theme of data sets being less available because of cost cutting.
  • Do we need contracts which require transparency.
  • Is there consistency in licensing from some of the government open data sites?
  • NHS in general
  • Should GP practices release performance data etc
  • Problems of protecting the most vulnerable people from con artists etc.
  • Data protection act still stands.
  • Problem of the benefits or otherwise of revealing detailed health data.