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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favorite tales on this weekly e-newsletter.
Generally, good issues are available in small cages. Or in 70-page paperwork. Or if you’re in an aeroplane over the ocean.
FT Alphaville was delighted to land at Washington Dulles airport to discover a freedom of knowledge response has landed in our inbox from considered one of our favorite UK authorities businesses.
The Workplace for Nationwide Statistics (for it’s they) have come via bigly with a response to our latest request for:
any present ONS steerage relating to the precise sort of things the worth observers employed by the ONS (be they ONS workers or third-party brokers) are being requested to watch.
If that is all completely new to you: the ONS and its brokers observe costs for a “basket” of consultant objects in an try to watch value adjustments (aka inflation). Nonetheless, they’re not all the time tremendous clear about what these objects are, even when it’s actually, actually ambiguous and the outcomes are bizarre.
You may learn the response and (unwieldy) doc in full right here.
As a result of civil servants are merciless, the doc’s formatting is horrible, half of its textual content isn’t precise textual content, and there are redactions. 🙃 However there’s some fascinating stuff right here!
The ONS says . . .
We’ve got redacted particular person enterprise names from the discharge, as companies collaborate with us underneath the expectation that their data is not going to be shared.
. . . and that . . .
Particular product names have additionally been redacted underneath Part 29(1)(a) of FOIA. This exemption applies when the disclosure of specific data would seemingly prejudice the financial pursuits of the UK. Disclosure of the particular product names that do and don’t contribute to the CPI may allow main retailers to affect the CPI by altering the worth of the in-basket product, and maybe offset it with adjustments in value of different related non-basket merchandise.
. . . to which our response is: yeah, certain, OK.
So what can we discover out? Nicely, given our uncommon tastes, our first response was to seek for the phrase “mammal”.
And we discovered success!
We’re instructed, moreover, that when observing small caged mammal costs, one should:
Value solely the animal, don’t embrace cage or any equipment
We do nonetheless have questions. The place have the ONS’s brokers been constantly discovering £60 rabbits? They should be posh rabbits, proper?
The doc has loads extra oddities (together with some fascinating stuff about gig value assortment dates, which we’ll DEFINITELY be returning to), together with stipulations that:
— cream crackers “Must state ‘Cream Crackers’ on pack”
— a person meat pie should be chilly
— inflation-suitable onions should be brown
— raisins are a banned dry fruit
— “No mini pizzas or pizza slices”
— a worth carpet should nonetheless comprise pure fibres, we’re not animals folks ffs
— a person’s informal sleeve prime should NOT totally open on the entrance
— acceptable wall hanging mirrors decisions are ordained solely by measurement, which is why final March the ONS took in a capacious value vary for this merchandise of £1.99 —£3,695
— hair sort should be tracked when recording conditioner inflation
Tell us within the remark part in case you spot different delights. We’ll attempt to make a tidier model of the ONS’s desk quickly, and get to protesting about these redactions.
Additional studying:
— small caged mammal
— small caged mammal infinity
— The thriller of the £39 orange
