19 July 2011 by Dafydd Vaughan. 1 Comment.
The Royal Mail provides a major public service across the UK – it handles millions of items of mail every day. Its operating licence requires it to publish a number of data sets on its performance on a regular basis. For example, it is required to publish information on its delivery targets (quality of service) [...]
22 March 2011 by Dafydd Vaughan. No Comments.
In 2005, South Wales was hit by a major outbreak of E.coli O157. A total of 157 people, mostly children, became ill and five-year-old Mason Jones died. Following the outbreak, a Public Inquiry developed 24 recommendations aimed at preventing further outbreaks. Consumer Focus Wales has taken on the task of monitoring the implementation of these [...]
28 January 2011 by Dafydd Vaughan. No Comments.
Today is European Privacy and Data Protection Day. It’s a day for governments, businesses and campaign bodies to promote the importance of keeping control of your personal information. This makes today a great chance to talk about how StayPrivate.org protects the information you give to us. Data encryption When you sign up to StayPrivate.org you [...]
9 December 2010 by Dafydd Vaughan. No Comments.
Over the past few months the Energy team at Consumer Focus have been working to develop a way to publish information about the way energy suppliers handle complaints. The aim is to provide people with additional useful information which can be used when deciding which energy supplier to use. The team has been compiling quarterly [...]
7 December 2010 by Dafydd Vaughan. 1 Comment.
A little while ago the Community and Public Services team at Consumer Focus commissioned the Plunkett Foundation and the Social Enterprise Coalition to compile details of post offices owned and operated by communities. The data includes contact details, core activities, company type, their relationship with Post Office Ltd (POL), details of the services provided, information [...]
6 April 2010 by Dafydd Vaughan. No Comments.
Last month I posted some data on browser share across the Consumer Focus ‘web presence’. I’ve just updated the spreadsheet (link and details below) with figures from March 2010 (and March 2009 for comparison). Browser Share Headlines Internet Explorer has gained a 0.5% share of visits over the last month, but is down 10% on [...]
1 March 2010 by Dafydd Vaughan. 1 Comment.
Over the past few months there has been an increased fight for market share amongst the top browsers. As well as the traditional rivalry between Internet Explorer and Firefox, we’ve seen a new entrant to the market over the last year – Google Chrome. Microsoft has this week started offering a choice to European users [...]
19 October 2009 by Dafydd Vaughan. 1 Comment.
We’ve been really quiet on the public front lately, but there has been a lot going on internally. This is an update on everything that we’ve been up to and what we’ve got planned for the next few months. Our work on the Stay Private project has continued amongst our other duties. We now have [...]
19 October 2009 by Dafydd Vaughan. 7 Comments.
Tesco have now responded to our data protection request. They’ve sent through a 13 page letter which includes printouts and screen shots from their various systems. Unfortunately, they haven’t provided me with an electronic copy of anything, so I’d have to retype everything in order to use the data for anything useful. We will be [...]
8 October 2009 by Dafydd Vaughan. No Comments.
While we’re still waiting for a full response from Tesco, I wanted to tell you about a Data Protection Request that went right. At the same time as making the original Tesco request, I also sent out a few other requests to some smaller businesses. Included amongst this group was a business that used to [...]
Consumer Focus is the independent champion for consumers across England, Wales, Scotland and (for postal consumers) in Northern Ireland. We operate across the whole of the economy, persuading businesses and public services to put consumers at the heart of what they do.
www.consumerfocus.org.uk
