Tag Archives: welfare

When reporting on data remember that those who don’t count aren’t counted

Invisible man

Invisible man image by Brian

In a guest post for OJB, Help Me Investigate contributor Natalie Leal talks about how statistics on benefit claimants, migrants and A&E admissions reflect organisations’ priorities – and can be skewed as a result.

I recently witnessed an unemployed woman at a job centre shouting that she would “never ever” set foot in there again.

The woman, who had just been told that her benefits would be cut off for thirteen weeks, stormed past two security guards on her way out.

They turned to each other and joked:

“That’s another one off the books.”

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Video: Heather Brooke’s tips on investigating, and using the FOI and Data Protection Acts

The following 3 videos first appeared on the Help Me Investigate blog, Help Me Investigate: Health and Help Me Investigate: Welfare. I thought I’d collect them together here too. As always, these are published under a Creative Commons licence, so you are welcome to re-use, edit and combine with other video, with attribution (and a link!).

First, Heather Brooke’s tips for starting to investigate public bodies:

Her advice on investigating health, welfare and crime:

And on using the Data Protection Act: