John Hemming's Web Log

A funny spoof trailer Hat tip to Peter Black

The Sunday Express today has a story about how over a thousand children each year continue to be wrongly adopted as a result in part of an error in calculating the adoption target. Christopher Booker today in the Sunday Telegraph looks at an additional two case studies. There is a lot of misinformation spread by civil servants (and parroted by ministers) about the adoption targets. Each English Council with childrens services responsibility had a specific local target known as BV PI 163 or PAF C23. (Those are "Best Value Performance Indicator" or "Performance Assessment Framework".) This was calculated as the number of children adopted from care each year by that local authority as a percentage of the total number of children that had been in care for at least 6 months as at the 31st of March of the same year. (The years go from 1st April to 31st March same as the financial years). All local authorities had specific funding to encourage adoption and some also ha...

The link is to an impressive campaign by Grandparents Plus about keeping families together rather than reaching for adoption orders ala Martin Narey. The videos are well produced and deal with the real issues. They are quite emotive, but what they say is real and not a misrepresentation of the situation.

"What Price Privacy" is the name of a report written by the Information Commissioner published on 10th May 2006. It gives details of what prices people charged to obtain information (often illegally) about other people. I have always been more concerned about how the press obtain information than what is reported. However, it is worth looking at the report and in particular Table 1 on page 24. TABLE 1: Tariff of charges in Motorman Case Information required Price paid to Price charged to ‘blagger’ customer Occupant search/Electoral roll check (obtaining or checking an address)not known £17.50 Telephone reverse trace* £40 £75 Telephone conversion (mobile)* not known £75 Friends and Family £60 – £80 not known Vehicle check at DVLA £70 £150 – £200 Criminal records check not known £500 Area search (locating a named person across a wide area)not known £60 Company/Director search not known £40 Ex-directory search £40 £65 – £75 Mobile telephone account enquiries not known £750 Lice...

The link is to a story about the rewriting of care records.

Ofcom have produced a map of Broadband availability. The link is the link to it. The real problem, however, is that it does not indicate what someone should expect in some of the really large counties such as Powys. Broadband will vary across such counties so it is more of a management tool than a tool which really explains what someone should expect if they move to somewhere in such a county. It is, however, something I find vaguely interesting so I thought I would repost it.

The link is to an article about Freedom of Speech and the Rule of Law in the Huffington Post.

This was the second time I have played with Digby Fairweather at the Jazz Festival. It is always a pleasure to accompany him. Sadly, however, I have my duties to perform in London and as such will not be able to attend most of the festival. I am hoping to find some time to sit in at some of the summer events in Birmingham, however. Pic: Merlin Daleman

The link is to an article I have written about problems with the legal system. It concentrates on, but is not exclusively about, Public Family Law.

This interview was quite surreal. Whatever the question was the answer was essentially the same.