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Wednesday, 10 September 2014
Thursday, 4 September 2014
Northern Ireland Audit Office Reports - Not User Friendly 3
Northern Ireland Audit Office Reports - Not User Friendly
Back in 2011 the Northern Ireland Audit Office said:
NIAO does permit, free of charge, the re-use of our information.
The NIAO and others are bound by regulations introduced on 1 July 2005:
The aim of the Regulations is to encourage the re-use of public sector information by removing obstacles that stand in the way of re-use. The main themes are improving transparency, fairness and consistency.
The Comptroller and Auditor General at the Northern Ireland Audit Office has recently qualified the 2013-2014 accounts of the Department of Culture and Leisure
NIAO conclusion [pdf file]:
2.6 As Business Plans have not received the required approval, there was no authority for this expenditure. I have therefore concluded that the expenditure is not in conformity with the authorities which govern it and qualified my audit opinion on regularity in this respect.
2.7 The Department of Finance and Personnel also indicated that if a department pays a cash grant to a North/South Body without the prior approval of the Department of Finance and Personnel then the department will have breached the provisions of the legislation and the expenditure is thus unlawful. However, there is conflicting legal advice on whether Department of Finance and Personnel approval has been provided in this regard. This is an issue which affects a number of departments and I would encourage this Department and others affected to further engage with the Department of Finance and Personnel to resolve this matter. I intend to keep this matter under review.
This file is word searchable but I was unable to do a simple copy and paste of these two paragraphs. If there is a question mark about the expenditure of public funds surely it is in the public interest that such information should be readily accessible as well as being an obligation.
Friday, 29 August 2014
Native of Torr Killed in Action - August 6, 1914
[snippet from service record]
At 06.45 on 6th August, the Amphion struck a mine which exploded and broke the ship’s back.Abandon Ship was ordered. As most of Amphion’s boats were destroyed, the destroyers sent their boats to rescue the crew. However, although Amphions’s engines were stopped, she continued turning in a circle and she struck the same row of mines. Her magazine detonated and the destroyers were showered with debris. Amphion sank at 07.05 and 151 men were lost.
With the war only 32 hours old, HMS Amphion, which had primarily assisted in inflicting the first German Naval loss of the war, became the first British Naval war loss. .. History Hub Ulster
According to his birth certificate, Henry John Bennett was born at Torr in the parish of Culfeightrin on August 25, 1877. His father Henry was a boatman in the coastguard service and his mother was Susan nee Pengalley; both parents were natives of Devon. At the time of the 1911 census, both
parents are living in Plymouth with daughter Rose, have been married for 39 years and had ten children of whom four were still living; Henry by that time was a naval pensioner. Four, at least, of the children - Henry John, Alfred Elias, Alice Louisa and Lillie - were born at Torr but Alice Louisa passed away there, aged just 15 months. The parents and two daughters, Lillie and Rosie, were in Langton Herring in Dorset in 1901.
George Charles McConachy was another Antrim man who perished aboard the Amphion. His parents were both from the Dungiven district; he was born in Belfast; his mother died when he was only about six; the family are in Ballymena in 1901 and his father David's contact address at the time of his son's death was 13 Kerr Street, Portrush.
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