{"id":1055,"date":"2008-06-25T08:39:53","date_gmt":"2008-06-25T07:39:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/?p=1055"},"modified":"2008-06-30T16:56:46","modified_gmt":"2008-06-30T15:56:46","slug":"freedom-of-information-numerical-junk-via-the-bbc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/2008\/06\/freedom-of-information-numerical-junk-via-the-bbc\/","title":{"rendered":"Freedom of Information: numerical junk via the BBC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"drop_cap\">T<\/span>hanks to a <strong>Freedom of Information<\/strong> request through great new site <a href=\"http:\/\/www.whatdotheyknow.com\/request\/licences_in_the_countries_of_the#incoming-1413\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>whatdotheyknow.com<\/strong><\/a>, you can get a rough idea of which UK &#8216;nation&#8217; paid what for the <strong>BBC<\/strong>, as of March 31, 2008.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s pretty precise:<!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Country\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 #licences revenue\u00a0\u00a0 %contrib.\u00a0 %pop (2006)<\/strong><br \/>\nEngland\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 20.415m\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a32,870m\u00a0 83.1%\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 83.8%<br \/>\nScotland\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 2.178m\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a3306m\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 8.9%\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 8.4%<br \/>\nWales\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 1.235m\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a3173m\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 5.0%\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 4.9%<br \/>\nN Ireland\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 0.624m\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a389m\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 2.6%\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 2.9%<br \/>\nChannel Is. 0.092m\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a313m\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 0.4%<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong><br \/>\n<\/strong>The Channel Islands aren&#8217;t included in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.statistics.gov.uk\/cci\/nugget.asp?ID=6\" target=\"_blank\">NSS population estimates<\/a>, but it is extraordinary how the distribution of TV licences almost exactly matches population distribution.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s because, I would suggest, these figures are rubbish. Ah yes, says the BBC letter, they are &#8216;an approximation&#8217;. It looks like <strong>Capita<\/strong>, who administer the licence fee, just used UK population data to divide up the total and output this junk.<\/p>\n<p>So this isn&#8217;t what each nation pays for the BBC. It&#8217;s just a numerical mush. Couldn&#8217;t the Information Commissioner require people to &#8211; as my old maths teacher used to say &#8211; &#8216;show their workings&#8217;?<\/p>\n<p>(There are more BBC licence fee responses <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/foi\/docs\/responses_tvlicence.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thanks to a Freedom of Information request through great new site whatdotheyknow.com, you can get a rough idea of which UK &#8216;nation&#8217; paid what for the BBC, as of March 31, 2008. It&#8217;s pretty precise:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[81],"tags":[15,1460,1464,1462,1463,1433,1461],"class_list":["post-1055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","tag-bbc","tag-freedom-of-information","tag-ireland","tag-scotland","tag-the-channel-islands","tag-united-kingdom","tag-wales"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1055\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}