Liverpool Daily uses public FOI site for scoop

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Update: [Alison has a great post on her blog about this story ](http://headlinesanddedlines.blogspot.com/2008/12/achieving-more-transparent-newsroom.html)with some insight in to what a big cultural shift this has been for some in the newsroom

Alison Gow has just dropped me a tweet pointing me to a story on the Liverpool Daily Post website about the numbers of council workers going off sick.

The information for the story came via a website called What do they Know which facilitates the submission of Freedom of information requests by the public.  What’s esspecially pleasing is that full credit is given to the site at the end of the article

How the figures were revealed

THE figures were released after a member of the public made a Freedom of Information request.

Stephen Gradwick used democracy website www.whatdotheyknow.com to submit the enquiry.

The original request, all letters and emails and the council’s response can be found at http://bit.ly/14Xm6

Great stuff and I hope a lot more people pitch in to the site and the other great offerings from MySociety

On a personal note, I should say that I’m a bit peeved that Alison and the team have got a story from the site. I’ve been using What do they know in the training I’ve been doing with Trinity Mirror journos and now my secret weapon to wake people up as the afternoon session drags is out!