Strangeness from Norfolk Constabulary
At the start of the year, I emailed Norfolk Constabulary and asked for details of their financial expenditure on the UEA inquiry. I got a pretty good response without any problems.
Today, however, I got a further email about this request.
We have just noticed an error in our previous response to your request for information. The cost figure shown for November 2010 was given as £34,454.61 and should have been £38,454.61. The total cost figure remains the same as previously provided. I have attached the amended response letter.
How odd that someone should be looking at this data so long after the FOI request had apparently been put to bed. I recently complained to the ICO about another FOI request to Norfolk Constabulary - this was about their correspondence with the Russell panel.
I wonder if there is a connection.
Reader Comments (14)
It's probably been generated by another FOI request on the same figures which someone then spotted that the figures didn't match.
Have you checked the original total expenditure?
If you add this extra £4000.00 to that total then one of the other amounts must be £4000.00 less.
Unless of course the original total was incorrect.
The simple explanation is probably NFM.
"Normal for Norfolk"
If they cannot suss, the difference between a hack and a leak after two years. Why should we be surprised about confusion in their finances? Lets face it, in the context of the hacking/leaking that goes on in the big bad cyber world, the CRU "hack/leak" must rank as one of the most simple.
Time for question in the house?
The mills of the plods grind slowly...
If it has anything remotely to do with Climate Science™, expect post facto adjustments to numbers. It's a requirement, apparently.
Andrew
Bad Andrew,
Ouch! That one is gonna leave a mark. :-)
A tip of the martini glass, sir.
Cheers!
Richard Black still believes it was a hack.
."..emails liberated by hacker or hackers unknown from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in late 2009, which gave rise to the "ClimateGate" affair."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15538845
Does he know something we don't know or is it just his usual style?
"We have just noticed an error"
I don't know about them, but I've just had to do my tax return. Perhaps someone with a calculator has been reconciling the figures...
Looks like they have become numerically infected by CRU.
Exactly £4,000! Errors are never exactly £4,000, an error is usually something like £143.29 or somesuch, so where or who had the four grand?
A keen eyed auditor is needed.
Also it is very Climate Science isn't it?
Like temperatures, always up, never down.
Speaking of Cimategate, any plans for a memorial service on the 2nd anniversary?
Two years and we have nothing specific from the Norfolk police? Curiously tardy. With the OO PR firm no longer advising them what to say to the public, then is it possible they are afraid to say anything of the investigation because they do not want to inadvertently get in trouble with pro-AGW groups in the British gov't and with the AGW community in general?
John
Be thankful for the miniscule size of the error -- the Irish lost about 3.6 billion euros.
Look at what I found!
"Exactly £4,000! Errors are never exactly £4,000, an error is usually something like £143.29 or somesuch, so where or who had the four grand?--A keen eyed auditor is needed."--Cold Richard
Exactually, the most common errors are transpositions, which are always divisible by .09. With a simple table and the overall balance error, you can narrow down where the error must lie. An upward error of exactly£4,000 means they probably just found an invoice in somebody's desk.
The downside political risk far exceeds the upside police gain, here. When the Times headline reads "King Calls Global Warming 'Scientists' Little Prank'," the file will be closed within a week.