Tag Archives: home office

Helen Duffett

Lynne Featherstone launches body confidence teaching pack

By Helen Duffett | Fri 30th September 2011 - 1:29 pm

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Mark Pack

Met Police and Home Office put on special measures for breaking rules

By Mark Pack | Mon 4th October 2010 - 1:53 pm

One for the bureaucratic irony files this. The Information Commissioner has announced that 33 public sector bodies have so regularly broken the rules on responding to Freedom of Information requests that they have been put in special measures.

The 33 bodies are all being required to fully document how they handle future requests and report monthly to the Information Commissioner on how they are doing are complying with the rules. Their record will be reviewed in three months time.

Home Office frontage. Photo credit: </a srcset=…

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Mark Pack

Rejoice! 11 months (and 1 new government) on and the Home Office responds

By Mark Pack | Sat 14th August 2010 - 9:20 am

Long term readers may recall my concerns over how the approach the Independent Safeguarding Authority was taking to the Vetting and Baring scheme, and in particular the way its guidance suggested that it didn’t really treat being found innocent in a court as counting as being innocent.

The ISA passed the issue on to the Home Office, and – as I previously reported – then there was silence, despite prompts from me. Silence too reigned when I contacted my Labour MP, Jeremy Corbyn, three times about the matter. Between them they didn’t even reply the once.

The ISA had the …

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Helen Duffett

Home Office report recommends labelling of airbrushed images aimed at children

By Helen Duffett | Fri 26th February 2010 - 6:29 pm

The Home Office has published an independent review into the sexualisation of young people, conducted by psychologist Linda Papadopoulos.

The report warns that children are being increasingly exposed to sexual imagery through advertising, music videos, computer games, magazines and some children’s clothing lines.

From the BBC:

Unless sexualisation is accepted as harmful, we will miss an important opportunity… to broaden young people’s beliefs about where their values lies,” said Dr Papadopoulos, a psychologist. The report’s 36 recommendations include calling for games consoles, mobile phones and some computers to be sold with parental controls already switched on.”

Other recommendations include banning “sexualised” music videos before the TV watershed, making digital literacy a compulsory part of the curriculum from age 5, and labelling airbrushed images:

Evidence suggests that even brief exposure to airbrushed images can lead to acute body dissatisfaction. To help combat this, efforts to raise levels of media literacy should be accompanied by initiatives aimed at encouraging society to take a more critical and questioning approach to the harmful perpetuation of unrealistic ideals. I therefore recommend the introduction of a system of ratings symbols for photographs to show the extent to which they have been altered. This is particularly critical in magazines targeting teen and pre-teen audiences.

The BBC, in reporting the findings, indulges in a little airbrushing of its own:

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Mark Pack

Memo to Home Office: it would be terribly nice if you sometimes answered a letter

By Mark Pack | Wed 27th January 2010 - 10:20 am

From a letter to my MP:

I emailed Sir Roger Singleton on 14 September about my concerns with the way the Independent Safeguarding Authority’s guidelines state that if someone has been found innocent in a court of law that does not mean they could have been completely innocent. Particularly given the many issues about the ISA’s remit, this choice of wording in their own guidelines is one of obvious concern.

I heard nothing so I emailed again on 16 October. On 19 October I was told by the Vetting & Barring Scheme Information Team that the issue had been passed to

…

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Mark Pack

Tackling crime: talking to and involving the public works

By Mark Pack | Wed 20th January 2010 - 10:20 am

The Home Office has recently published a review of the research into how to improve public confidence in the police. One of their conclusions? The very community politics idea, expressed in very New Labour vocabulary, that

The strategies most likely to be effective in improving confidence are initiatives aimed at increasing community engagement. Three out of the four interventions classified in the ‘what works’ evidence all included an element of communicating and engaging with the community (embedding neighbourhood policing; high quality community engagement; and using local-level communications/newsletters).

In other words: talk to people, listen to them and involve them. That is …

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Stephen Tall

Better late than never

By Stephen Tall | Mon 26th October 2009 - 8:20 pm

Some positive news today in the fight for justice for Gary McKinnon, the Asperger’s sufferer and alleged computer hacker who is facing extradition to the USA, a fate which it is believed could jeopardise his health:

The Home Secretary confirmed today that he had “stopped the clock” on proceedings to extradite the British alleged hacker Gary McKinnon to the United States. Alan Johnson told MPs that he was examining new medical evidence in the case, and would allow Mr McKinnon’s lawyers more time to consider medical reports and make legal representations.

Mr McKinnon, from North London, is wanted by US prosecutors

…

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Tim Connolly

Opinion: Youth justice – a golden opportunity for the Lib Dems

By Tim Connolly | Wed 9th September 2009 - 2:30 pm

Youth justice has risen, zombie-like, from the place unloved political issues go to die. In July, the Government published an interim report on The Youth Crime Action Plan, its “comprehensive, cross-government analysis of what the government is going to do to tackle youth crime.”

This prompted vigorous activity from the think-tanks and NGOs, and a predictable silence from the dead who may live again, aka the Conservative Party.

Last week, the Liberal Democrats published data showing that the number of 10 to 12 year olds convicted of a criminal offence rose by 87.2% between 1997 and 2007. Nick Clegg, remarking on the figures, argued that:

It is a disgrace the Government spends eleven times more locking up our young people than it does on backing projects to stop them getting involved in crime in the first place.”

Unless you happen to be keen on nineteenth century penal philosophy, Nick’s comment seems to make excellent sense. I would suggest, however, that it is, at best, carelessly imprecise. At worst, it indicates a refusal to challenge the prevailing conservative narrative on youth crime. Given recent reporting of events in Doncaster, a measured rebuttal is more critical than ever.

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Stephen Tall

Simon Hughes challenges Home Secretary over McKinnon extradition

By Stephen Tall | Tue 7th July 2009 - 11:30 am

Yesterday’s LDV highlighted an article by Lib Dem peer Lord (Alex) Carlile, urging that alleged computer hacker Gary McKinnon not be extradited to the USA to face charges – it is feared Mr McKinnon’s health could significantly deteriorate as a result of his Asperger’s condition. Lib Dem MP Simon Hughes used the opportunity of topical questions to the Home Secretary yesterday to ask Alan Johnson direct if he would intervene to prevent Mr McKinnon’s extradition.

Simon Hughes (North Southwark and Bermondsey) (LD): Will the Home Secretary act now to deal with growing anger in my constituency and around

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Stephen Tall

Lib Dems press on Kingsnorth climate camp policing

By Stephen Tall | Tue 7th July 2009 - 10:12 am

Lib Dem Voice has covered before the allegations of that the policing at the climate camp at Kingsnorth in August 2008 was unacceptable – click here for the archive. Lib Dem MPs are continuing to press the Home Office to present an honest account of what happened, and to state what lessons have been learned for future policing of peaceful protests.

Yesterday in the Commons, both Greg Mulholland and Chris Huhne asked the questions of the Government’s minister for policing. Here are the exchanges from Hansard:

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The Voice

Huhne on Green arrest: “monumental shambles” by senior civil servants

By The Voice | Thu 16th April 2009 - 2:28 pm

Tory MP Damien Green will not face criminal charges for his alleged role in leaking confidential home office documents, the Crown Prosecutions Service has announced. Menawhile the home affairs parliamentary select committee has found that civil servants exaggerated the seriousness of the leaks, claiming they had caused ‘considerable damage to national security’.

Lib Dem shadow home secretary Chris Huhne has not minced his words:

This is a monumental shambles. It is astonishing that ministers were not consulted, if the Home Affairs Select Committee is right, as they should have realised the political consequences of being seen to harass an

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Stephen Tall

‘Toothache, diarrhoea, cut fingers and possible bee stings’ – the injuries that Kingsnorth climate camp protestors were blamed for inflicting on police

By Stephen Tall | Tue 16th December 2008 - 8:25 pm

Kudos to Lib Dem MP David Howarth for his role in forcing an apology from a Labour home office minister who had blamed protestors who attended the Kingsnorth climate camp for hurting 70 police officers. The Guardian has the story today:

A minister apologised to parliament yesterday for telling MPs that 70 police officers were hurt during a climate change protest … The apology followed a freedom of information request from the Liberal Democrats, which showed that no officers in the £5.9m police operation at Kingsnorth power station in Kent during August had been injured by protesters. Instead, police records showed that their medical unit had dealt mostly with toothache, diarrhoea, cut fingers and “possible bee stings”.

And here’s the Hansard exchange:

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Alex Foster

Baker takes on rozzers

By Alex Foster | Mon 15th December 2008 - 4:49 pm

Earlier in the year, we carried a piece raising concerns with the policing at the Kingsnorth climate camp.

It’s not just our own councillors concerned with the conduct of the police at that event. A report in the Guardian suggests that people at all levels of governance from councillor to MEP have raised concerns.

Norman Baker MP said, “I personally witnessed unnecessarily aggressive policing, unprovoked violence against peaceful protesters, an extraordinary number of police on site, and tactics such as confiscating toilet rolls, board games and clown costumes from what I saw to be peaceful demonstrators.”

Now, according to a report …

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Alix Mortimer

Government’s knife crime figures are “selective”

By Alix Mortimer | Sat 13th December 2008 - 1:23 pm

The UK Statistics Authority has accused the government of releasing “premature, irregular and selective” figures which appeared to prove that knife crime in the UK was falling.

The Authority’s chair Sir Michael Scholar has written to the Permanent Secretary at Number 10 as follows:

These statistics were not due for publication for some time, and had not therefore been through the regular process of checking and quality assurance.

The statisticians who produced them, together with the National Statistician, tried unsuccessfully to prevent their premature, irregular and selective release.

I hope you

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