Trial By Error: QMUL and FOI; Nature and Cochrane; the Pineapple Fund

[Sly Saint]

Many people at QMUL must know of this problem

Didn't QMULs solicitors sign the letter to Psychological Medicine demanding the retraction of the PACE findings in March 2017(?) That's got to have been more than embarrassing.

 

[Indigophoton]

So from this quote it would seem that a "lowest common denominator" effect has to be taken regarding the capability of staff.

Does this ruling now mean then that ALL public bodies would need to have in-house staff capable of doing X task, before an FOI asking for X could reasonably request X from one body???

The Commissioner wasn't making quite that general a statement. He was specifically addressing QMUL's assertion that a statistician was needed to provide the data requested of them. So his remarks are limited to X being stats people.

It creates a huge amount of work for those looking at FOI requests - ie assessing multiple organisations for their capabilities, instead of just looking at the organisation to which the FOI applies.

Could this be challenged on principle??

I doubt it does give rise to much work, since it would only ever arise on a case by case basis. In most cases, the issue probably never arises.

The Freedom of Information Act is an Act of Parliament, so challenging it would not be trivial. If there is provision for changes to be made to the FOIA written within the FOIA, then it would need 'delegated legislation', otherwise it would require a new Bill to go through both Houses of Parliament. This is a massive undertaking, and not necessarily productive or useful in this instance.

A much better approach is the one @JohnTheJack is proposing to take, to challenge the idea that QMUL need to 'create' the data: if that assertion falls, the rest becomes redundant anyway.

 

[Sly Saint]

I trained as a statistician, and I can use Stata. Just saying.

challenge the idea that QMUL need to 'create' the data

Just watched this:

From the 5minutes long video it would appear that a lot of the datasets created might have been saved(?)

 

[Allele]

This reeks of straw man/red herring. Unfortunately law and legal proceedings are about who argues most compellingly, not about uncovering the truth.

 

[JohnTheJack]

I trained as a statistician, and I can use Stata. Just saying.

Would you be able and willing then to answer some detailed questions I have? (If so, I think it better in private, if that's OK. I don't want to sound too green ink, but I understand these forums are sometimes monitored.)

 

[Adrian]

Didn't QMULs solicitors sign the letter to Psychological Medicine demanding the retraction of the PACE findings in March 2017(?) That's got to have been more than embarrassing.

No I think an academic who worked in their law dept did.

 

[Jan]

Didn't QMULs solicitors sign the letter to Psychological Medicine demanding the retraction of the PACE findings in March 2017(?) That's got to have been more than embarrassing.

see post #74

Robin Callender Smith
about 5 months ago
Congratulations to Valerie - and all the other ME advocates and ME sufferers - whose critical mass (in the most real sense) has created this sea-change in the reporting/head-line writing relating to ME. Shame on my own University QMUL - where, irony of ironies, I am Professor of Media Law - for squandering its financial resources and blackening its own reputation in its "vexatious" reaction to Freedom of Information requests that finally chipped away the fabric of the cruel scientific fictions that underlay the PACE trial. As a Information Rights Judge at the time of all these requests - observing QMUL's wilful idiocy but conflicted from doing or saying anything either academically or judicially - it is uplifting to see some of the balance being redressed.

 

[Adam pwme]

Is this any use? details of who was responsible for database design and management

Seems to confirm it is a database, and looks like they have a database administration team (see job vacancy below), they should have all appropriate skills in house. My guess is they should be able to copy the database, and remove or anonymise any columns from personal data tables like Name, Surname, Address. Could confirm If we had the database schema and details of software.

Also what format was the data given in the successful FOI? Could that give us any clues?

https://webapps2.is.qmul.ac.uk/jobs...d=9C2A1E69BF1233D1D08518272C286F64?jobID=2638

 

[Adrian]

Also what format was the data given in the successful FOI? Could that give us any clues?

I think it was in the stats analysis plan but could be elsewhere. They had a MS Access database along with the full data and then data for analysis loaded into Stata and SPSS.

 

[Adam pwme]

I think it was in the stats analysis plan but could be elsewhere. They had a MS Access database along with the full data and then data for analysis loaded into Stata and SPSS.

If original data was stored in MS access then having no expertise is even more ridiculous. Are there any more FOIs planned? Asking for confirmation it’s in MS Access and the DB schema.