Stoptober: Is PHE reading this blog?

I wonder if officials at Public Health England read this blog.

Three weeks ago I mentioned I had sent PHE a Freedom of Information request for a copy of the 2019 Stoptober campaign evaluation which, I noted, had still not been published despite the fact that it was now eleven months since the end of the 2019 campaign.

To be fair, I wasn't surprised because this has been common practice in recent years.

Anyway, just six days later, on October 7, PHE finally chose to publish it. Naturally they didn't bother to tell me which is why, two days ago (October 19), I wrote:

I am still waiting for a response to my Freedom of Information request for a copy of the Stoptober 2019 evaluation report.

Lo and behold, the FOI response duly arrived this morning, dated yesterday (October 20):

As well as directing me to the 2019 campaign evaluation which has been uploaded on to the government website, the response provides answers to my queries concerning the cost of both the 2018 and 2019 Stoptober campaigns.

For the 2018 campaign PHE confirms that the final amount was £2,038,000. For 2019 it was £1,717,000.

Responding to my request for information about the cost of Stoptober 2020, PHE says the projected cost is £1,748,000.

Finally, in response to a question about the projected date for the publication of the 2020 campaign evaluation, PHE says:

Plans for the publication of a full evaluation of Stoptober 2020 will be considered when all current activity has ended.

Given that, in recent years, PHE has waited until the start of the next campaign before publishing the evaluation report for the previous campaign, and that PHE will no longer exist after March 2021, the chances of a 2020 campaign evaluation appearing at all are probably slim to non-existent.

Then again, I've never understood why it should take so long because there's really no excuse. Are they hoping we'll just forget about it and not ask questions about, for example, the money paid to 'celebrities' to support the campaign?

Anyway, I've now got a bit of reading to do although it shouldn't take long. (Stoptober evaluations are never more than a few pages.) If I find anything worth commenting on I'll let you know.

Comments

[Pat Nurse]

Of course they do. How else do they get names of angry consumers that they dismiss as trolls rather than consider why the little person is so angry with the Goliath of Government and it's enforcement agencies?

Lots of comments from your blog nicked, copied and pasted onto the tobacco tactics bully site. How else would they get, file, and store them if they didn't trawl through your blog looking for them?