Walterbear

Firstly apologies for the length of the text below but some interesting observations may be drawn from the lack of accountability of the BBC and the use of their interpretation of journalistic freedom. Anyone using the FOI route in the BBC should be interested and this may help you decide how to approach the BBC. The BBC rejected my request and I appealed to the Information Commissioner. We all know the answer to the question I asked but it’s important to keep highlighting to London the dissatisfaction with their service. Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA)Your FOIA request to the BBC I am writing from the Information Commissioner’s Office to explain the Commissioner’s preliminary conclusion with respect to your complaint. The Commissioner is satisfied that the BBC has correctly handled your request for information under the FOIA. Summary of the correspondence You made a request for the following information: "Please can you advise me how much of BBC Scotland budget was allocated to cover ‘away matches’ in the group stage Europa League matches involving Celtic and Rangers in football season 2018/19? For example how much money was spent on fees to subcontracted staff, hotel and travel expenses including subsistence, overtime, additional broadcasting costs for technical and operational necessities, hiring of equipment or facilities. I do not need the figure broken down by expense type but an overall total sum of money or budget allocated to those matches will suffice.”On 8 March 2019 the BBC responded to your request. The BBC explained that it did not believe that the information was caught by FOIA because it was held for the purposes of ‘art, journalism or literature’. Some key principles about the operation of FOIA Although the BBC is listed as a public authority in the FOIA it applies to the BBC only to a limited extent. The BBC is a public authority for the purposes of the FOIA – “in respect of information held for purposes other than those of journalism, art or literature.” This is known as the Schedule 1 derogation. This means that information held for the purposes of journalism, art or literature is not covered by the FOIA but is derogated. The Commissioner can only consider concerns within the scope of the FOIA. The Commissioner is unable to compel the public authority to provide information outside its obligations under FOIA. The operation of the derogation is explained in more detail below. How the derogation works Since the FOIA came into force, the issue on derogation has created considerable litigation about what this means. The High Court, the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court have explained their views about when the derogation will apply and their decisions are binding on the Commissioner. In summary, if the information is held and relates to ‘output’ then it falls outside FOIA. In 2012, the Supreme Court in Sugar (Deceased) v British Broadcasting Corporation and another [2012] UKSC 4 gave a clear definition of what the phrase ‘journalism, art or literature’ means in FOIA and what types of information it will cover; the Supreme Court found that, “…the composite expression ‘journalism, art or literature’ seems to be intended to cover the whole of the BBC’s output in its mission (under article 5 of its Royal Charter) to inform, educate and entertain the public. On that comprehensive approach the purposes of journalism, art or literature would be, quite simply, the purposes of the BBC’s entire output to the public.” (Lord Walker at para 70). In relation to journalism the Supreme Court accepted the Information Tribunal’s definition of journalism as comprising three elements: • The first is the collecting or gathering, writing and verifying of materials for publication. • The second is editorial. This involves the exercise of judgement on issues such as: * the selection, prioritisation and timing of matters for broadcast or publication; * the analysis of, and review of individual programmes; and * the provision of context and background to such programmes. • The third element is the maintenance and enhancement of the standards and quality of journalism (particularly with respect to accuracy, balance and completeness). This may involve the training and development of individual journalists, the mentoring of less experienced journalists by more experienced colleagues, professional supervision and guidance, and reviews of the standards and quality of particular areas of programme making.” Also the Supreme Court found (in a 4:1 majority) that if the information is held by the BBC to any significant degree for the relevant purposes (i.e. journalism, art, literature) it is exempt from production under FOIA, even if the information is also held for other purposes[1]. Therefore provided there is a relationship between the information and one of the purposes listed in Part VI of Schedule 1 – which are to be read to mean ‘output’ – then the information is derogated. The information relevant to the request need not be journalistic, artistic or literary material itself. All that must be evidenced is that the information requested has a relationship with the BBC’s output. Is there a relationship between the information requested and ‘output’? The information you have requested, relating to the budget for coverage of away matches is information held for the purpose of 'journalism, art or literature'. This is because this information is linked to the BBC’s output, in particular its decisions regarding how much of its budget to allocate to cover away matches and therefore what information is broadcast in this area. As a result I am satisfied that in this case the Commissioner has no jurisdiction in this matter and therefore no statutory power to order disclosure. You may wish to read some decision notices regarding the application of the derogation at the link below by selecting the BBC under the ‘Authority’ tab: http://search.ico.org.uk/ico/search/decisionnotice The Commissioner’s preliminary conclusion in this case As a preliminary conclusion, the Commissioner is satisfied that the requested information is derogated and therefore the BBC is not obliged to comply with Parts I to V of the FOIA with respect to this request. Progression of this case and actions required Please consider the following options: 1. It may be case that you are prepared to withdraw this complaint at this point given the information above. This does not mean that you are satisfied with the situation, but that you understand that any decision notice you will receive will be highly likely to uphold the position of the BBC and find against you. Should you agree to withdraw your complaint without a decision notice you would not then be able to appeal this case to the First-tier Tribunal (Information Rights).2. The alternative is that you want to proceed to a decision notice and as explained above it is highly likely to uphold the position of the BBC and find against you. Both parties will however have a right of appeal at the First-tier Tribunal (Information Rights) where there are grounds to do so. If you require a decision notice I would ask you to provide your arguments about why you disagree with the preliminary view that is outlined above and encourage you to read through the material that I have referenced.

The answer with Clyde is to not tune in. Unlike the BBC who take all our money if we watch 1 second of live telly Clyde would suffer almost immediately if their listening figures dropped of a cliff. If every Bear gave them a miss for a month the message would get through.

I think we’re probably on the same wavelength here Buster. However I am not aware of a compensation claim case that has been made. I’m aware of threats to take them to court but those are early positioning statements from P Maguire, Celtic refuse to open a dialogue and no court papers exist. Nothing is happening in a formal legal compensation case therefore BBC have not actually got much to report on regarding a compensation claim. They would point to their Daly work in demonstrating they were generally taking the whole business seriously. Of course Daly could do a lot more now given all the stuff crawling out the woodwork. Even Celtic admit they held an inquiry into the Boys Club but no one such as the BBC have asked to see their papers. It’s very clear BBC Scotland is not applying as much airtime or other media output to this scandal as would be expected and perhaps there are complaints to be raised there but it’s hard to see what the case would be ie specifically what part of the BBC Charter would they be falling foul of. Whether they are deliberately editing in favour of either pre trial compensation position is hard to prove and I would suggest would be a lot of effort in vain and I’m not clear how you would prove the point. Without a whistleblower it’s virtually impossible to validate. A complaint of that nature would be easy to rebut at this stage imo unless you have very clear wordings in output from the BBC (or a whistleblower).

The BBC have their own skeletons in this particular cupboard. They ignored Saville and the rest of them for years despite strong suspicions.

Need to bin it imo. The only reason we have this process is because Celtic always felt cheated. Let the refs referee and get them in from other leagues to improve the standard. Celtic are very quiet about Simunovic given their quest for sporting integrity.

She should apologise to Rangers for intimating it was somehow a slur to be seen in our Directors box.

I agree in the main but what is missing from the Simunovic verdict is a clear and rationale explanation and that is worth highlighting. His incident should also be compared to those in the 4Lads article. This is not as you suggest however the example to judge Whyte on as she referred it - unless she referred it with an emphasis on something different.

Good stuff from the Academy. Good luck lads.

What I really like is when he’s not playing well (and he made a lot of errors against Celtic on Sunday) he buckled down, used his pace and tenacity and got tore in and was a real pest. Nightmare to play against folk with that attitude. I reckon £5m is about right but I’d hope Liverpool threw us another couple of good loanees as part of it.

Given the European CL set up and the exclusion of clubs like ours in the future we may well end up needing a close relationship with the likes of Liverpool. We are massive and if we played in their league we would match them but the reality check here is that if we can connect to a club in a bigger market then Liverpool isn’t the worst option. I hate it but that’s the way it’s going.

Liverpool say £12m. I’m happy with that. Bring good players to us and we increase their value.

Apparently they didn’t see it so they can do this but the only evidence is what everyone else has seen which is inconclusive. It’s an absolute joke. Brown played him. Flanagan moves his elbow on Browns first run and Brown saw that and played for a repeat. That is one highly plausible interpretation but it can’t be proved just like it can’t be proved or disproved he was elbowed in the face. The evidence didn’t exist.

Again the question has to be the process of citing. Simonuvic v Defoe hasn’t had a mention! Why not? Are the BBC and Sky managing our disciplinary process. It’s fecking incredible and despite all the lawyers involved it just doesn’t stand up to any examination on the basis of natural justice. On Brown I didn’t see any angle that proved Brown had been hit on the face and given the linesman or ref didn’t see it then how can a panel watching the same footage everyone else saw conclude that was Browns face (or throat for that matter)? However giving the SFA the benefit of the doubt on Flanagan why the hell hasn’t Simonuvic been cited? Why wasn’t Brown cited for raking Morelos, or Broadfoot, why did Power get away with assaulting Jack, how the hell was the Killie keeper exonerated from elbowing Kamara. What are our Board doing about it?

A few things cost us the title but Worral versus Kilmarnock is the biggest imo. The fact we never recovered from that says a lot about the overall character but that’s where we are and what we must fix. No more kids on loan like him learning to b a footballer in vital positions. It’s not rocket science. Gerard will fix it.

It’s a big risk if Moyes but maybe he’s in that place after ManU and Spain - either resurrection or total disaster.

Last year we were guaranteed 5 goal drubbings and petrified of them. It’s jyst not the same this year. Plus qualifying for EL and holding our own against Spartak, Villareal and Rapid was surely beyond most folks expectations. Only disappointment was not winning a cup but where we stuttered in some games Celtic got last minute winners. That’s the basic difference and it’s negligible compared to last year. If they fail to qualify for the CL next year I think we will be getting very near to parity. Our biggest issue is still to make sure the books are getting managed behind the scenes and commercial development is progressed - that’s where the biggest difference is at the moment. I’m not overly worried about on field. This Sunday I expect us to win. We may or may not but the point is I now anticipate this game rather than fear it.

With you on that one. It’s utter dross. Content is pysh and whole set up lacks authenticity. The audience they are trying to appeal to won’t watch that. They will be on their computers. You would have to be virtually brain dead to tune into twice.

You can’t honour people and organisations who themselves show no respect or honour. I don’t even want their scummy fans, players and officials in our stadium let alone honour them.

Hatred is at an all time high and we have division within our own fan base which reflects politics more generally, and in my opinion some Rangers fans are also trying to exploit the situation against some genuine Rangers fans for political ends. It’s a terrible scenario really. Imperative to try and keep politics out of our club but given SNP in Glasgow/West Coast in particular are very anti Rangers we must defend ourselves. That should not mean turning the argument inwards with some Rangers fans saying others are not true supporters it should mean attacking our detractors. I note the West Coast media cottoned on to this story not to protect Rangers but to protect labour. Reading between the lines they are saying labour is being smeared by association with Rangers, they are not saying Rangers are the victims of the SNP. We really need to stick together and attack all our detractors and not each other (that point not so much for this forum but it’s blatant on others).

Well I’d be pretty tempted!

I think we all know anecdotally that the council is discriminatory but there is a lack of clear evidence. Evidence generally needs to be presented in a statistical form and the objectives of the protest need to be clear. For example if there is employment discrimination (which I think there is) and that is what people are motivated by, it needs to be clearly demonstrable and then clarity offered on what is the action and outcome required to remove discrimination. If it is about marches then it is difficult to present a case for discrimination against Protestants in this instance if a march attracts trouble eg spitting on a priest (I get this is being exploited by callitout). It is surely a public order issue? I am far from being a supporter of the Catholic Church and the more marches against organised religion the better but the real culprit in all of this is the numbskull who was convicted for assault. If the priest had not been spat on there would have been a subsequent march. These people feel threatened (possibly exaggerating the threat) but the debate from an OO perspective has to be about removing numbskulls. How would we all feel if a republican band marched up Edmonton Drive and the followers misbehaved and for example vandalised the stadium or spat on officials at the stadium? We’d be calling for a ban on future marches

Off field reasons mate. One of my best pals is one of his best pals and has known him all his life. Pressure of the situation at Rangers and time required allied to his personal life made it impossible. I could give you what personal reason is but its nothing more than thousands go through. I wouldn’t worry about it.

CD3 about half way between penalty box and half way line (great view of all the pitch) was £560 last year. Add 5%.

Good spirit second half. Should have taken a draw. No criticisms of any player for second half performance. Tav error was only really bad point but apart from that he had a good game and helped drag us back into it. Kamara very composed coming in in that atmosphere and looks a decent player. Worral is hopeless. Constantly giving the ball away and should have done better at first goal. Goldson not the player we thought he was. Morelos - what can you say but he probably has to get out of this league for his sake and ours. Next season he will get another batch of reds if he stays. No question about it whether they will be deserved or not.

I noted that the Celtic commissioned independent consultancy into the crush has been done by Fairhurst Engineering. Seems to be a link to Bath Street Holdings and from there to Pacific Shelf. Who’d have thunk it? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairhurst_(company) https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/SC159839