Annex B
Guardian stories which have been written
using the freedom of information since it came into force in January
2005:
— For the first time, the NHS published
the death rates of individual cardiac surgeons. This allows patients
to make a more informed choice on which surgeons should operate
on them.
— How multi-national drug companies
lobbied ministers in an attempt to subvert the independent appraisal
process and get their expensive new medicines approved for large-scale
use in the NHS.
— A league table of the biggest carbon
dioxide polluters in the UK—the company at the top of the
list emitted more carbon dioxide than Croatia last year.
— Documents showed that John Prescott's
department was more involved than had been admitted in deciding
whether US tycoon Philip Anschutz should be allowed to build a
mega casino at the Millennium Dome.
— Nuclear inspectors raised serious
questions over the safety of Britain's ageing atomic power stations,
some of which had developed major cracks in their reactor cores.
— Documents which pinpointed the moment
when the government's leading law officer changed his mind over
the legality of the invasion of Iraq.
— The amount of European Union subsidy
received by each farmer in UK was revealed for the first time—the
list shows that the Queen and Prince Charles had received a more
than £1 million in the last two years.
— The Government was forced to warn
14 countries that patients are in danger of developing the human
form of mad cow disease as a result of contaminated British blood
products sold abroad.
— Downing Street documents showed that
Margaret Thatcher was poised to make a remarkable admission about
a financial scandal involving her son which might have led to
her resignation in 1984. She had pressed a foreign government
to give a contract to a British firm which employed Mark.
— The Post Office published a list
of local branches which are scheduled to close.
— Details of MPs' travel expenses were
published for the first time. They revealed that a former Labour
minister claimed more than £16,000 in mileage and a Tory
backbencher over £5,000 in taxi fares.
— Report kept secret for more than
50 years revealed Britain's clandestine torture programme in postwar
Germany—including harrowing photographs of young men who
were systematically starved, beaten, deprived of sleep and exposed
to extreme cold.
— How Shell improperly lobbied a cabinet
minister over a huge gas plant in Russia.
— Documents revealed health and safety
concerns about Shell's oil rigs in the North Sea.
— An official report suppressed for
nearly 25 years revealed that the Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire
Ripper, had probably committed "many" more crimes that
the 13 murders and seven attempted murders for which he was convicted.
— How ministers emasculated laws to
prevent the payment of corrupt payments by firms abroad, following
intense lobbying by BAE and other big companies.
— How 458 staff of English National
Opera were furious that the chief executive and artistic director
were appointed without others being interviewed.
— How George Robertson, former Labour
minister, lobbied the Foreign Office to help a multi-national
firm of which he is now deputy chairman. The firm, Cable &
Wireless, was in dire financial trouble.
— How Greg Dyke wanted to be reinstated
as director-general of the BBC a week after he was sacked over
the Hutton report and why he was sacked in the first place.
— Tony Blair forced to disclose the
dates on which he met Rupert Murdoch.
— Regulators expressed serious worries
over high doses of the controversial cholesterol-lowering drug
Crestor just two months before it went on the market.
— The broadcasting regulator drew up
controversial proposals on the advertising of junk food for children
after being lobbied on 29 occasions by the food and advertising
industry.
— A dozen NHS trusts are technically
broke, with no chance of meeting a legal obligation to balance
their books.
— How City of London police officers
have been accepting dinners and gifts worth thousands of pounds
from the Scientologists.
— More than 160 prison officers were
involved in inflicting and covering up a regime of torture over
nine years at Wormwood Scrubs—inmates were beaten savagely,
threatened with death and sexually assaulted.
— A survey of 200 local councils revealed
the dirty and decaying state of school kitchens used to cook meals
for children. Inspectors found that at one school, "something
was seen jumping in the couscous".
— How health inspectors voiced their
criticisms of the hygiene standards of restaurants run by some
of Britain's most well-known chefs, including Gordon Ramsey and
Heston Blumenthal.
— How the Met police realised that
Ian Blair's decision to block an independent inquiry into the
shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes left them open to accusations
of a cover-up.
— How the government gave financial
support to a British firm, Mabey and Johnson, accused of bribery
in the Philippines.
— The information commissioner ordered
the Ministry of Defence to release the names and identities of
its 500 arms sales officials.
— How tens of thousands of lives and
homes are being put at risk because councils are allowing properties
to be built in areas which have a serious chance of being flooded.
Councils are ignoring the advice of the watchdog body, the Environment
Agency.
— Despite the image of feckless fathers,
new Child Support Agency figures show that more women than men
persistently refuse to pay child maintenance.
— The Child Support Agency has had
to refund hundreds of thousands of pounds in maintenance payments
to more than 3,000 men after DNA tests revealed that they had
been wrongly named by mothers in paternity suits.
— The consultant appointed by the government
to scrap the Child Support Agency was paid £900 a day to
find a solution—a higher daily rate than the country's most
senior civil servant, the Cabinet Secretary.
— How Margaret Thatcher tried to stop
Sebastian Coe from competing and then winning gold at the 1980
Moscow Olympics. She tried to persuade him to support her boycott.
— Walter Wolfgang, the peace campaigner
thrown out of Labour's party conference for heckling, was under
Special Branch surveillance as long ago as 1962.
— How the government's education reforms
failed to win the backing of headteachers, as just a handful of
schools showed any interest in becoming self-governing trusts.
— A watchdog, the Medicines and Healthcare
Regulatory Authority, named 25 hospitals which had bought body
parts allegedly stolen in the US. There have been concerns that
parts such as tissue or bones imported to help UK patients may
have been infected with diseases such as HIV or hepatitis.
— A British ambassador warned that
emergency services would not cope if terrorists blew up a strategically
important oil pipeline heavily supported by the UK Government.
— An accident involving Trident nuclear
warheads being moved on Britain's roads could lead to a partial
nuclear blast.
— The Treasury curbed a so-called creative
accounting fiddle which has allowed Prince Charles to receive
up to £1.2 million in "back door" payments from
the Duchy of Cornwall estate to cover his personal expenses.
— The Attorney General intervened more
than 300 times over three years to increase "unduly lenient"
sentences received by convicted criminals, including killers,
rapists and child abusers.
— How Special Branch penetrated the
Anti-Apartheid Movement from top to bottom, infiltrating meetings,
recruiting informers and obtaining documents.
— How the French Government tried to
blame the British intelligence service MI6 for the sinking of
the Greenpeace boat, the Rainbow Warrior, in 1985, in a
campaign of "misinformation and smears" which infuriated
the Thatcher government.
— Areas which have the highest numbers
of obese people in England were revealed—top of the list
were County Durham and Tees Valley.
— How Lord Falconer, as a barrister
in the mid-1980s, provided vital legal advice to help break up
the National Union of Mineworkers after the 1984-85 miners' strike.
— The Security Services barred more
than 200 foreign scientists from studying at British universities
over four years, amid fears that they could present a terrorist
threat.
— A list of train stations with the
worst facilities for passengers was published. Many traditional
facilities associated with the railway system such as waiting
rooms, luggage trolleys, toilets, public telephones and clocks
had disappeared since privatisation.
— Ministers were privately frustrated
at police failures to enforce existing laws to tackle Britain's
growing binge drinking problem. Ministers pressed police to single
out, and crack down, on irresponsible pubs which encourage excessive
drinking.
— Documents showed how Margaret Thatcher's
government was split over the decision to grant South African
athlete Zola Budd a British passport rapidly so that she could
run in the 1984 Olympic Games.
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