Yesterday we reported on how prisoners in Northern Ireland were being paid £1.94 million in benefits they were not entitled to. In this post Gesbeen Mohammad explains the background to the story. This story began when Help Me Investigate was approached by an individual who was confused by the contradiction between replies to two different Freedom of Information (FOI) requests: This request by […]
Prisoners in Northern Ireland have been paid £1.94 million in benefits over the last six years, despite not being entitled to them, according to data obtained by Help Me Investigate. And “overpayments” to prisoners – the official term for paying benefits to those in prison – have increased by more than half in the last year for which figures were […]
Benefits paid to prisoners have declined by 96 per cent since 2007 – but almost £21m is still missing because only half the money has been recovered to the Department for Work and Pensions, an investigation by Help Me Investigate’s Gesbeen Mohammad has revealed. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) centralised its benefits database […]
Almost 1 in 20 households using the Sanctuary Scheme for people at risk of domestic violence have been affected by the removal of the spare room subsidy, reports Lorcan James. Figures obtained from FOI requests to 79 Local Authorities show that from 2009, 281 households have been affected, meaning an average loss of £14 pounds […]
Policing the Olympic torch procession cost taxpayers almost £6.5m nationally, according to a series of Freedom of Information requests by Gesbeen Mohammad. The spending includes the costs incurred to local police authorities throughout the UK for the 56 days the … Continue reading →
HMI Welfare wanted to know what help was on hand for people with mental health problems in hospital Accident and Emergency departments. It seemed a simple question: How many mental health staff work in A&E? What we found, however, was an inconsistency across NHS helplines about who to ask about the services available to mental health patients. We contacted: NHS England, […]
TweetResearch by the University and College Union (UCU) revealed that more than half of British 145 universities have staff on zero hour contracts: a controversial arrangement that doesn’t guarantee pay or continuous work hours. According to figures from FOI requests, … Continue reading →
Four of the UK’s top universities are among those employing the most lecturers on zero hour contracts leading to insecure and uncertain work. Research from University and Colleges Union (UCU) shows Bath, Edinburgh, Lancaster and Glasgow universities together employ 5,500 … Continue reading →
This year at the CIJ Summer School, Adjunct Professor, Mark Lee Hunter, explained how using hypotheses can frame and sell your story. A hypothesis is what the investigator wants to prove or disprove. It takes the best information you have into account and contains factual assertions that can be verified. How hypotheses frame and sell […]
TweetIn the final part of this series on common misconceptions about international students and visa laws, Nicole Froio looks at whether foreign students want to stay in the UK. International Students Myth 5: If the PSW exists, all foreign graduates will want to … Continue reading →