Armed Police officers

The rural police forces are saying that they are sitting ducks, in the case of a terrorist attack, due to there being a lack of armed police officers, so a BBC report says.  Is this the case?  Aren't I the man to find this out?  The thing is, this doesn't look at the full spectrum of things that come under the banner of terrorism. WHat about training?  What about intelligence?  Are those the sort of things that Wales needs to look at?

After asking the home office:

1)How many armed police officers are there in the UK at the present moment

2) How much is spent on recruiting armed police officers

3) How much is spent on training armed police officers

I got a very interesting answer.  They basically said the data was in the public domain for the first part of the question, HOWEVER:

turning to parts two and three of your request, the Home Office does not centrally record

the recruitment and training costs for armed officers across forces in England and Wales.

It is for Chief Officers to determine the number and recruit and train authorised firearms

Police Chief officers to determine?  The request that I made about the training programmes has still yet to be answered at time of writing.  

That's the home office sorted.  Let’s get a bit closer to home.  Let's ask all police forces in Wales about how many armed police officer they have.  That would at least help us to see what we can do regarding wales. Gwent police basically refused me…  Because the information is publically  available.  Pretty  cool, eh kids?  Now the boys in North Wales Police (They’re amazing) stated that they have a joint armed force response unit with Cheshire. They have 100 armed police officers (combined).  At time of writing Dyfed Powys Police and South Wales Police have yet to get back in touch with me. 

The table of armed police officers in these are aer as follows:

Wales	244
Dyfed-Powys	63
Gwent	45
North Wales	48
South Wales	88

SO what is the amount that is needed to be “Safe” or “prepared”?   Now that is a harder number to come up with.  

What about training?  Has any of the police forces, in Wales, had any training from the Metropolitan Police office? They usually deal with things like this.,  South Wales police have not had any training from Metropolitan Police.  Hmm… Neither has Gwent Police.  North Wales Police have had the following training:

CSD MET POLICE PATHOGENS COURSE x1

CSD MET FIELD INTELLIGENCE OFFICER COURSE x1

DOG SECTION GENERAL PURPOSE INSTRUCTOR x1

HYDRA FACILITATION COURSE x1

TERRORIST FINANCIAL INVESTIGATION x2

NATIONAL NEGOTIATOR'S TRAINING x5

Dyfed Powys police have yet to get back to me (At time of writing). So why ask this question to the police?  Because the Metropolitan police have something call a gang matrix which  tracks gangs, and terrorists.  If Wales has had this training then we have a better idea of being protected and a better of idea what we are facing. So I await with bated breath the update on this post..

The Freemasons

A lot has been written about the Freemasons (I deliberately put a link to the google search because that way there can be no instance of bias).  Some of it is positive and some of it has been negative. A lot has also been written about the Freemasons that is incorrect, bias, and in some cases outright lies. The thing is, in one respect, they are their own worst enemy because they are a secretive bunch. As a result, there are all sorts of things that they are accused of that are not true.  It also makes them very easy target for conspiracy.  

Why do I bring this up?  Because is is something that a lot of people have asked about.  There are people who think that the Freemasons have some sort of international conspiracy who rule the world.  Whether this is true or not is another matter; but don't you want to know what other people have dug up on this matter?

Back in the late 60’s, there was a massive thought amongst people who thought that the freemason were in the police. Is this still the case?  The Home Office has yet to answer this question.  The reason is because they need extra time. Fair enough, but this is an interesting question that we should keep an eye on, just for interests sake more than anything. When the The Association of Chief Police Officers of England, Wales and Northern Ireland was in existence, Someone asked about the guidance for freemasons in the police, which they did not have.  They have been replaced by the National Police Chiefs Council, would the same request give any more of a response? Only time will tell...

Do the Freemasons close ranks on people?  According to Paul Sainthouse, they do. Now looking through his FoI requests, he seems the type of guys that is trying to prove a point. Whether or not this is the case is another matter. We can see a few things from his FoI request.  In this one, Paul asks for who are the the members of the panel who are Freemasons.  It’s only refused because it would be revealing personal information AND is not recorded, which when you think about it, is actually common sense. My personnel records don't have which clubs I belong to and neither would I want them to be disclosed under an FoI request to all to see. (Have a look at this)

Now a look through his other requests shows this one.  This one is asking for correspondence between the police and Northumbria Healthcare.  They state they were willing to give the information he initially asked for but failed to pay the £10 fee. The reasons that I bring this up is purely because it shows that sometimes the conspiracy is nothing more than an illusion.

So what about government?  Brighton and Hove were asked the question about what they have done to help the Freemasons.  Turns out it was a much bigger request than anticipated.   So how about other requests?  Well this one shed a little light on the issue of freemasons. They stated that:

“Standards for England has issued guidance for elected Councillors in respect of membership of Freemason. Freemasons are not singled out by the Code. However the Code applies to membership of any body that is directed to charitable purposes. There is no requirement for employees to declare if they are Freemasons.”

They did disclose there are two members of the Freemasons with them, too.   Now this is a very brief overview of what people have asked. A search through the pile shows over 505 requests for Freemason.  So let's see how far down this rabbit hole goes...

Buses

The House of Commons and the House of Lords have no cars.  Seriously, I asked them and they both said they didn't.  I have to be honest and state that this shocked me because I wondered how the Mps and Lords get about the place. It also made me wonder about another thing which is public transport. Surely they must use something to get them about the place. So let's have a little look into the wonderful world of public transport.

First off, let's have a little think about buses.  First of all, all bus companies have to have guidance from the Ministry for Transport.  So what guidance do they give when making a bus company?  It turns out that the Ministry of Transport published a whole heap about this topic.  This is good for us, isn't it?  It doesn't tell us, however, how much the buses cost and how many you need.

For those of you not in the know, buses are massive cars that people go on to move about the place. Great.  Surely thought, there should be some information on how much they cost and how many you need; only one way to find out.  So who would you contact on the cost of buses and how many they had?  How about Cardiff City Transport Services Limited & Newport Transport Limited.  They are both Welsh and they both run buses, so they could help couldn't they?   It turns out that Cardiff is much better than Newport on answering FoI requests (proof, if proof were needed, Nathan)…  So it turns out that Cardiff has 210 buses in operation and they cost upwards of £100,000.  Hmmm…  Costs a lot doesn't it?  This doesn't give us the comparison that we need.  What happens if we were to ask Blackpool, Ipswich, Reading, Rossendale, Thamesdown, and Warrington too?  Maybe this will show us what we need.  

Something else for us all to think about is CCTV on buses.  Thanks to Barbara for this one who asked how long Halton keeps CCTV footage.  It is also worth noting that she (and someone else asked the question to the above companies too.  So a little look through the pile also shows people who are asking some very big questions about bus routes, for example, Mark Smith asking for all of the bus routes that are in Merseyside. There are some who are very specific questions about buses, such as Sian Berry asking for the reliability of a specific bus route.  Another little look showed this one from James Mclean…

One thing that is pretty interesting is that I asked all the bus companies how much their costs cost and how much maintenance costs were.  Well, the reply from newport Buses tells you everything:

The release of purchase prices of vehicles (which are negotiated between purchaser and supplier) would release information to other competing suppliers and would also release this information to other bus operators.

This may allow other operators to drive down their purchase costs based on our information or allow suppliers to price match each other.

In regards to maintenance costs this would release information that would form part of our route profitability and, when involved in tender processes, competitive operators knowledge of a cost line that would be used to price the tender.

Cool isn't it kids?

South Yorkshire Police

All police forces have a bad reputation in the United Kingdom.  Sometimes this is  justified and sometimes it is not.  With South Yorkshire Police, historically, they are all justified.  They are responsible for the Hillsborough disaster, Rotherham Sex Abuse Scandal,  and Battle of Orgreave.  This is singling out one police force as there other bad apples and there have been other bad apples; the thing is these historical abuses are coming more to the front.  Hillsborough has been in the newspapers due to the negligence being found.  

So what can the FoI tell us about them?  Can it show us some light on them?  I asked the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) about their most complained about forces in 201/15.  At time of writing they have not got back to me. The cool this is the IPCC have a section where you can search out about each individual force on how many complaint have been received from them. This is going to be interesting.

SO what else is lurking on the IPCC?  Do they have any more information? Maybe some FoI will help us. Maybe if I asked the IPCC about the Hillsborough files?  Turns out they had it available all the time.  So I checked their website and interesting thing is that the IPCC has a whole section dedicated to Hillsborough AND when we search Orgreave, their site, they have a MASSIVE amount of information.  At least they have been transparent. So what about the other issues?  Things that could not be reported on.

If you type into www.whatdotheyknow.com Hillsbrough Disaster you get the results listed here. A whole smorgasbord of requests.  This one took my interest, the “Absence of pocketbook”... A pocket book is something that Police officer use to record things as they happen. So what was the response?  They couldn't answer the question as it was over the allotted period of time of a FoI request. The thing was they South Yorkshire referred them to  the Hillsborough Independent Panel.  Section 16 strikes again!

So what about the other things. WHat about the Battle of Orgreave?  WHat has been said on that one? Well here is list of arrests made by South Yorkshire, Here is a list of officers and some website which you can gather more information, and here is a response on surveillance on the families.  

The thing is, however, there is a lot of information here but it doesn't take us deeper at this moment. Or does it?  IS there a something else in the background of these case?  Is there something else we can ask?  That is another blog for another day.

Community Psychiatric Nurses

Community Psychiatric Nurses (CSN) are amazing people.  These amazing people go into people's homes and help them to deal with their psychiatric issues.  They are a vital part of the mental health system and they help loads of people to move on from whatever was hurting them.  They are people who you have to have respect for.  The thing is that mental health issues are something that ALL of us will have to deal with, at some point in our lives. Why bring this up here, though?  Wouldn't it be interesting to see what the average caseload for these guys is?

There is a massive underspend in mental health and the weird thing is that we need to know more about it.  So let's find out if we can see more about the procession and how overworked they are.  So I asked all the health boards in Wales the following questions:

1) How many community psychiatric nurses you have working in your authority at time of writing

2) What is the average turnover of community psychiatric nurses in your authority from 01/01/15 to 01/01/16

3) What is the average caseload for community psychiatric nurses at time of writing.

So I did have a few mistakes in asking this one, such as asking Public Health Wales NHS Trust the same question to be told, very nicely, that this is not something that they look at…

So here are the results

Name	Amount	Turnover (%)	Case Load
Cwm Taf Local Health Board	78	6.41	21 / 22
Cardiff and Vale University Local Health Board	111	11.83	35
Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Local Health Board	118	8.2	65+ - 29 18 / 64 - 25
Hywel Dda Local Health Board	112	11	18 / 64 - 16 65+ - 10
Betsi Cadwaladr University Local Health Board	212	9.37%	26
Aneurin Bevan Local Health Board	123.67	9.81	24.5

Now this gives us a deeper insight into the world of the CSN.  It shows that these guys have a lot of cases but also shows us a disparity between the amount of workers in this region.  Wales has had a lot of issues with regards to its health provision.  At least this gives us a signpost on what is going on there.  Maybe the next thing we should ask is about how much is spent by other groups to help the mental health of Wales.

MH17

The plane crash of MH17 on the 17/07/14 was a tragedy.  The thing that is interesting (If this is right words for this sort of situation), is that there was an allegation that a missile was fired at it.  Diplomatically, this is massive deal; this is the biggest thing that you can do.  Attacking a civilian plant with a missile is a terrible deal and could lead to even bigger diplomatic pressure with an already tense situation on the Russian and Ukraine governments. Can the FoI help us with this situation?  Let's have a look.

Before I go any further, have a little look at the BBC Conspiracy FIles.  If you can watch it, it is an amazing documentary to watch. Well researched and well put forth.

I should point out here, that I do not follow conspiracy theories, but I do think that they add a different way of thinking about a situation and looking to see if the official version holds water.  Remember government have done really weird things.  Governments covered up the deliberate infection of black people with syphilis, the systematic sterilization of mental health patients, and the use of thalidomide.  Shouldn't it be possible that a government would cover

up a firing on a civilian plane?

So what can we find out about this case?  WHat can we find from the FoI act?  The first thing is that this did not happen on British Soil.  Well, maybe the  National Police Air Service (NPAS) or the Civil Aviation Authority (CAS) helped to investigate the crash?  The CAS didn't, that being said the NPAS has yet to get back to me at time of writing.  What about the Air Safety Support International Limited?  The didn't either.  Hows about the Accidents Investigation Branch?  They have yet to get back in touch with me either (At time of writing).  This will be interesting as we can see that there was no British Involvement in investigating the case.   

There always other avenues, however. What about the advice given to planes going through conflict zones?  The Department of Transport (DoT) gave a lot of useful advice  and referred me to the Civil Aviation Authority’s website for International Civil Aviation Organisation’s Conflict Zone Information Repository.  Have a little look on this website. It is fascinating, especially when you get to the section on the ukraine.  Now on the previous request the DoT also said that:

The Department for Transport issues security advice to UK air operators, both direct and

through the Civil Aviation Authority, in order either to prohibit them from operating in certain

airspace or to make them aware of security issues so that they can undertake their own

risk assessments in planning and routing their flights.

Could MH17 have had the knowledge that they were flying into a conflict zone?  They would have known.  If you look at the website on conflict zones, it is run by the UN  There is no way that would not have been circulated. The DoT also said

It should be noted that there is one instance where the UK has issued a Direction against

using the airspace of the Syrian Arab Republic but this information is not currently listed on

the ICAO repository. It has, however, been distributed to UK air operators who will be aware

of the direction against overflying.

So what about other avenues?  WHat about diplomatic relations?  I asked the Cabinet Office, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and the Prime Minister’s office the same question; that was “Please can you tell me how many files you have relating to the MH17 plane crash”. My theory was that this would help to see if they have done any work on this plane crash.  This was way too vague.  If you look at the conversation between me and the Foreign office, you can see that they were trying to help me on this matter.

I think that I am going to have a little dig about on this again.  I think that there maybe something more to this.  I think that there may be something else on this.  Maybe another few FoI’s?