Thursday, October 16, 2008

Wyre Forest and that £9m

Just in from the BBC's Midlands Today special auditors have been/are being sent to assist two councils in the Midlands - Tamworth and Wyre Forest.

Our illustrious leader was featured in a pre-recorded interview, not saying much as you might expect; but this is too early for it to hit the web so no transcript as yet.

From 24dash published at 8:45 today:

Wyre Forest District Council in Worcestershire confirmed that it has been told it will be one of the first three authorities to receive help from an emergency team.

But council leader John Campion said that it had not actually received a visit from the team or been told when it would arrive.

Cllr Campion said: "In response to the letter sent to the Prime Minister last week, we understand that Wyre Forest will be one of the first councils to receive advice if required. The council is always receptive to any advice which will help in recovering the £9 million investment in the banks affected."
From the Express and Star posted at 11:33:
Leader of Wyre Forest District Council Councillor John Campion said although the help was appreciated he would prefer a guarantee from the Government that the investments would be recovered.

"We want a guarantee from the Government that the money will be returned.

"Private investors have been told their investments are safe but not councils.

"If we don’t get some or all of the money back we would like the Government to look at topping up the shortfall.

"It does seem as though the Government is struggling to understand the issues of local government."
From Local Government Chronicle updated 12:19 today:
Cllr John Campion (Con), leader of Wyre Forest, said: "The government has established a 'rapid response' unit to assist councils by providing external financial experts. In response to the letter sent to the Prime Minister last week, we understand that Wyre Forest will be one of the first councils to receive advice if required.

"The Council is always receptive to any advice which will help in recovering the £9m investment in the banks affected."
As you can no doubt tell they're all quoting from the same page and you can even piece together some part of the original from where one overlaps a quote with another.

[Update - Damn it Tav beat me to it linking to the WFDC]

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What really narks me is that on-line newspapers, television station web sites, news websites etc. don’t bother to hyperlink their sources (except in a fashion BBC News). I can understand this with the old fangled printed media, but when you are on-line and you want to know more about the article you have the means to easily link to the original source and find out more. If an on-line newspaper did this I'm sure they would get regular dedicated visitors.

A prime culprit of un-sourced on-line articles is the Express & Star, who I have got into trouble in the past because of their interpretation of an original source. It's much worse when they write an article about a major planning application. They neither give out the address, the planning application number, not even the ward the application resides within _ no you have to search/trawl through the planning section (a long tedious process).

Regarding our council... I must commend them for this time they are updating their website on a regular basis, hence the regular articles in the media regarding the lost (or at risk) £9m. Although they have updated a webpage and removed the links to old press releases from the homepage, I have to admit I am impressed.

FlipC said...

As you mention I think this is a legacy of printed material. The ability to write an article that is formatted for both media types seems beyond the majority of journalists.

After finding any internet addresses they typed 'helpfully' underlined and turned blue I bet many just give up.