In October 2012 the government made the rules stricter for people out of work and claiming benefits. Since the new rules came into effect more people than ever before have been sanctioned. What does it mean if someone is ‘sanctioned’? Being sanctioned means your money is stopped. People out of work and looking for a job […]
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 […]
In the first part of this series I looked at bringing general news sources and blogs into one place; in the second I looked at social media discussions. This final part looks at how to know what government departments are saying and doing, even if no one is reporting it. Data and documents provide some of […]
In the first part of this series we looked at bringing general news sources and blogs into one place. In this part we look to another important source: social media discussions. Social media discussions contain three types of information: news updates you haven’t seen elsewhere; expertise (analysis and insights, for example); and personal experience (case studies). Here’s […]
Earlier this week we published our list of 19 places to follow welfare developments. In the first of a three-part series, we explain how to get your own list of useful feeds into one page, and share it with others. Step 1: Use a ‘personalisable homepage’ news reader like Netvibes or Feedly There are a number of […]
If you want to keep track of what’s happening in welfare reform we’ve compiled this list of some of the most useful – and varied – sources on everything from the bedroom tax to child poverty. We’ve also put together a dashboard if you want to follow these on a single easy-to-check webpage. You can follow […]
Background material and general reporting on an area can often provide all sorts of clues and leads for further, deeper investigation. This piece from the Birmingham Mail is a particularly good example. On the surface it is a rather general report on an empty property in the city – but along the way it includes all sorts […]