Most viewed requests – 19-25 November 2012

One WhatDoTheyKnow statistic that we often quote, is that for each request written on the site, around 30 requests are read.  I’ve been recently taking a look at our web statistics, and thought you mind find it useful or interesting to see which are our most read requests.

So, here are the top 10 for last week.

There’s a definite theme, most readers are looking for information on the new Universal Jobmatch service which went live last week, without much mainstream media coverage, so people have a lot of questions which are being discussed on a number of DWP-watching blogs, Facebook & Twitter.

  1. Medicine A100 Admissions Statistics (Imperial College London)   – 629 unique views. Find out detailed statistics on who applied for Medicine at ICL – seemingly the most popular university out of these similar requests.
  2. Universal Jobmatch (DWP) – 702 views. This request asked for “leaflets or training info or guides given to jobcentre staff or customers to explain Universal Jobmatch”. A summary of training guides was provided, but no detail – one for future follow-up FOI requests?
  3. Universal Jobmatch and the Government Gateway (DWP) – 508 views. Detailed information was asked on the procedures and guidance issued to Jobcentre Plus staff relating to Jobmatch. The request is still in progress.
  4. Universal Jobmatch is Mandatory (DWP) – 446 views. The requester asked whether Universal Jobmatch will be mandatory for anyone on Jobseekers Allowance. The DWP refused the request, claiming Section 35 (formulation of government policy) and Section 42 (legal professional privilege). They said that the policy was still being developed, and (or?) that information was legally privileged. An internal review has been requested.
  5. Medicine A100 Statistics (Imperial College London) – 427 views. This asks for more recent 2011 & 2012 data, following on from #1. There’s a thestudentroom.co.uk forum poston this which is tracking all the medical schools’ statistics.
  6. Is signing up to Universal Jobmatch compulsory to claim JSA? (DWP) – 421 views. We don’t know as there’s no answer just yet.
  7. List of research used by the Secretary of State supporting the Academisation of state schools (Department for Education) – 406 views. Most traffic for this request came from this tweet from @alanmills405. This request is in still progress, so click its “Follow” button to find out the DfE’s response.
  8. Location of every post box that the Royal Mail Group operates (Royal Mail) – 324 views. This is one of our all-time top 3 most viewed requests, with around 22,000 visitors each year looking at it. Data from this request has been incorporated into a number of different apps and websites – follow the various links added to the request. I wonder why Royal Mail hasn’t done more to open up this data…
  9. Universal Jobmatch and Monster Worldwide emails (DWP) – 292 views. Apparently if you’re in a “junior” position, and not public facing, then your work emails are “personal data”, and exempt under FOI. Doesn’t sound right to me.
  10. New appointments opening time (UK Border Agency) – 284 views. Apparently, sometime after midnight seems to be the best time to try to bag your appointment (although the UKBA didn’t provide this information). Disappointment likely though – we get a lot of correspondence from people frustrated with the UK Border Agency’s slow pace at casework, poor communication and lack of detailed guidance on their website.

If you’re interested in keeping up with any of these requests, especially if there’s no response yet, then click the “Follow” button at the top of each request page to be alerted when an update is received, either by email or RSS.