Today (1st April 2013) marks a significant change in the way that the NHS in England is structured.  Strategic Health Authorities (SHA) & Primary Care Trusts (PCT) are abolished, and their responsibilities are being taken on by newly created Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCG), the National Commissioning Board, Public Health England and local authorities.

The split is roughly along these lines:

• Clinical Commissioning Groups commission elective hospital care, urgent and emergency care, community healthcare and mental healthcare & learning disability services for the local areas they cover
• The National Commissioning Board covers primary care contracting (GP Contracting, Dental, Pharmacy), specialised services, offender healthcare, secure mental health care and some armed forces healthcare
• “Top-tier” and unitary Local Authorities take on responsibilities for these aspects of public health: sexual health services, drug and alcohol treatment, health checks, school nursing programmes, giving up smoking programmes and services to prevent childhood obesity
• Public Health England is a national body which will work closely with local authorities’ public health teams, carrying out a range of activities to protect and improve the nation’s health, eg to co-ordinating work to combat infectious diseases such as flu or infections acquired in hospitals such as MRSA, or to carry out national publicity campaigns to prevent ill health

This means quite a bit of change to the public authority listings on WhatDoTheyKnow:

1) PCTs and SHAs are now marked as “defunct” to prevent new requests from being made (see below for more details).

2) We’ve now listed all the new CCGs, but we’re missing email addresses for around 15% of them.  It’s clear that many CCGs are not quite ready to welcome FOI requests.  Even though they went live today, there are a fair number of websites still under construction (I’ve seen lots of “lorem ipsum” text today), with no contact details.  We aim to get these all up-to-date in the next few weeks as they get up to speed.

3) The National Commissioning Board and Public Health England have been added to the site

4) We’ll be adding local Health and Wellbeing Boards, Healthwatch organisations & Local Education & Training Boards soon.

Police Service changes in Scotland

Under the banner of reducing duplication and cost-saving (BBC article), police services in Scotland are being completely re-organised with 2 new central bodies replacing all the regional police forces and boards:

• Creation of Police Scotland and the Scottish Police Authority – both added to WDTK
• These replace the current Scottish Police Forces and Police Boards which have been marked as “defunct”
• The Police Complaints Commissioner for Scotland is renamed as the Police Investigations & Review Commissioner (PIRC).
• The Scottish Police Services Authority, Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency and Police Advisory Board for Scotland are also dissolved.

Fire Service changes in Scotland

Similar changes are taking place with Scotland’s fire services:

• The local Scottish fire and rescue services have been replaced by the centralised Scottish Fire and Rescue Service
• The local fire boards/authorities have been replaced by the centralised Scottish Fire and Rescue Service Board.
• The old public authorities have been marked as “defunct”

Other joiners & leavers…

The following is a round-up of other changes taking place today…

Say hello to:

• NHS Property Services Ltd (contact email address required)
• Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)
• Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA)

And goodbye to:

• Commission for Rural Communities (role taken on by Rural Communities Policy Unit within Defra)
• Financial Services Authority (FSA) – split into the FCA & PRA shown above
• Health Protection Agency
• NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement
• National Information Governance Board for Health and Social Care
• National Treatment Agency
• Olympic Lottery Distributor (information held is transferred to DCMS)
• Railway Heritage Committee (role taken on by the Science Museum)

And although they’re officially changing, it’s pretty much business as usual for:

• Health and Social Care Information Centre (was also known as NHS Information Centre) becomes Health and Social Care Information Centre
• National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) becomes National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE)

Defunct public authorities

We flag old public bodies that no longer exist as “defunct” to prevent new requests from being made.  In most circumstances FOI officers transfer across in-flight requests to the relevant replacement authority.  If you need to follow-up a request to a defunct public body (e.g. if there’s no further contact from an authority), the website will let you, however the “old” authority is no longer under any obligation to reply.  You may need to re-send your request to a new public authority which will restart the 20-day clock…

Please help us!

Given the scale of change, if you find any incorrect information for these public authority listings, please let us know!  Also please get in touch if you find an email address for any of those we’re still on the hunt for…

Alaveteli (the software that runs WhatDoTheyKnow) is capable of being translated into any language, and we’ve finally switched on the ability to use the website in Welsh today. Many apologies for the long wait as this has been on our to-do list for well over 2 years…

As you can see, we don’t yet have a complete Welsh translation, and it’s just a start:  we’ve done the help pages, and around 6% of the rest.  To take a look at what’s been done, just click the “Cymraeg” link at the top of any page.

We’d love it if you could help us get to 100% by adding translations (or correcting any mistakes we’ve made!) at Transifex. You can read more about working with translations for Alaveteli, here and here, or just get in touch if you need a helping hand getting started or have any further questions.

And finally, a massive thank you & diolch to the translators who have already helped us get this far!

One of our volunteers, Helen, was responsible for spotting that Islington had made this mistake, and so we feel it is appropriate to set out a summary of what happened, to inform journalists and citizens who may be interested.

Note – Concerned residents should contact Islington Council or the Information Commissioner’s Office.

On 27th May a user of our WhatDoTheyKnow website raised an FOI request to Islington Borough Council. On the 26th June the council responded to the FOI request by sending three Excel workbooks. Unfortunately, these contained a considerable amount of accidentally released, private data about Islington residents. In one file the personal data was contained within a normal spreadsheet, in the two other workbooks the personal data was contained on four hidden sheets.

All requests and responses sent via WhatDoTheyKnow are automatically published online without any human intervention – this is the key feature that makes this site both valuable and popular. So these Excel workbooks went instantly onto the public web, where they seem to have attracted little attention – our logs suggest 7 downloads in total.

Shortly after sending out these files, someone within the the council tried to delete the first email using Microsoft Outlook’s ‘recall’ feature. As most readers are probably aware – normal emails sent across the internet cannot be remotely removed using the recall function, so this first mail, containing sensitive information in both plain sight and in (trivially) hidden forms remained online.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the only mistake on the 26th June. A short while later, the council sent a ‘replacement’ FOI response that still contained a large amount of personal information, this time in the form of hidden Excel tabs. As you can see from this page on the Microsoft site , uncovering such tabs takes seconds, and only basic computer skills.

At no point on or after the 26th June did we receive any notification from Islington (or anyone else) that problematic information had been released not once, but twice, even though all mails sent via WhatDoTheyKnow make it clear that replies are published automatically online. Had we been told we would have been able to remove the information quickly.

It was only by sheer good fortune that our volunteer Helen happened to stumble across these documents some weeks later, and she handled the situation wonderfully, immediately hiding the data, asking Google to clear their cache, and alerting the rest of mySociety to the situation. This happened on the 14th July, a Saturday, and over the weekend mySociety staff, volunteers and trustees swung into action to formulate a plan.

The next working day, Monday 16th July, we alerted both Islington and the ICO about what had happened with an extremely detailed timeline.

The personal data released by Islington Borough Council relates to 2,376 individuals/families who have made applications for council housing or are council tenants, and includes everything from name to sexuality. It is for the ICO, not mySociety, to evaluate what sort of harm may have resulted from this release, but we felt it was important to be clear about the details of this incident.

Today we’ve re-added Network Rail to the list of public bodies one can make requests for information from via mySociety’s Freedom of Information website WhatDoTheyKnow.

Network Rail owns, runs, maintains and develops most of the UK’s rail infrastructure including tracks, signalling, bridges, tunnels, level crossings, viaducts. It owns almost all of the UK’s stations and manages the biggest and busiest.

Network Rail is not currently subject to the Freedom of Information Act or the Environmental Information Regulations however we use our site for activism by listing many bodies which are not formally subject to FOI or EIR. Some of these voluntarily comply with FOI, others don’t but we add them because we think they ought be subject to the Act on grounds such as:

• Making public appointments.
• Being substantially publicly funded (this is not a sole reason we would consider an organisation a public body)
• Controlling public assets.
• Having a public regulatory function, including controlling access to trades and professions.
• Controlling significant national infrastructure.

The degree to which Network Rail is a public body is a subject of controversy however a number of the criteria listed above clearly apply to the company.

The Information Commissioner once ruled that Network Rail is a public authority for the purposes of the Environmental Information Regulations however this was overturned by a Information Tribunal Decision in 2007 .

The tribunal decision noted:

[Network Rail] is a major landowner whose estate … in the words of its website, includes “many sites of great environmental, geological, historical and architectural importance” as well as much contaminated land.

The tribunal expressed a view the position of Network Rail in relation to access to information legislation is “clearly unsatisfactory”.

Network Rail

We originally added Network Rail to our site back in 2008 before we had developed the above policies and we closed it to new requests after the first request sent didn’t get a response.

Recently there have been positive indications in relation to access to information held by Network Rail. On the 2nd of February 2012, transport minister Norman Baker speaking in Parliament said:

Network Rail has promised that it is in the process of developing a voluntary information rights code, which will mirror many of the provisions in the Freedom of Information Act. We welcome that initiative and believe that, if properly implemented, it will provide an alternative to legislation. We expect the company to introduce the code alongside a broader package of Government reforms later this year.

This followed an earlier statement, from the 18th of January 2012, by Earl Attlee, answering a written question on behalf of the government:

Network Rail is a private sector company. The Government have no current plans to extend the Freedom of Information Act to the company. However, we welcome the fact that Network Rail is taking steps to enhance its own transparency and is developing a voluntary publication scheme with which it will comply.

The approved model publication scheme used by public bodies which have to have one states:

Information held by a public authority that is not published under this scheme can be requested in writing…

Hopefully our re-listing of Network Rail will help push Network Rail’s openness and transparency agenda along and enable our users to benefit from the new era of openness being promised within the company. Making correspondence related to requests for information publicly available via our site will enable everyone to see how it goes.

On the 21st of February 2012 Alex Skene, representing mySociety’s Freedom of Information website WhatDoTheyKnow, appeared in front of the UK Parliament’s Justice Select Committee. The MPs on the committee were holding an evidence session as part of their post-legislative scrutiny of the Freedom of Information Act.

Video of the session can be viewed online via ParliamentLive.TV and the BBC’s Democracy Live. A transcript of the session will become available via TheyWorkForYou, typically these take a week or two to be produced.

Prior to the session WhatDoTheyKnow had submitted written evidence to the review making three main points:

• The scope of the act should be extended to cover a wider range of public bodies.
• Time limits should be introduced for public interest tests and internal reviews.
• There is a need for more proactive publication of information, and a culture of openness and transparency needs to continue to be nurtured and extended within the UK’s public sector

The committee appeared genuinely interested in finding out how FOI has performed to-date and how it can be improved.

Supercharging FOI

Alex told the committee that FOI enables evidence based policy making and empowers citizens; he said the WhatDoTheyKnow.com website supercharges the provisions of the FOI Act making it easier for people to take advantage of the right to access information which it gives them.

Ghosts

Elfyn Llwyd MP raised the question of vexatious and frivolous requests through the medium of ghosts. Asked if requests about ghosts could ever be justified Alex told MPs that it was hard to draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable requests. He noted that one council had spent public money on an exorcism, so in that case there would be information held and an FOI request justified. He questioned if requests on ghosts were to be deemed unacceptable, what other areas might be excluded. UFOs? The MoD for a long period did have an office collating UFO reports, again there was public spending, and recorded information held, in this area. Homeopathy was also highlighted, that’s about as real as ghosts or UFOs, but again FOI requests about it must surely be permitted as significant amounts of taxpayers money are spent on it.

Maurice Frankel, the director of the Campaign for Freedom of Information, who was giving evidence alongside WhatDoTheyKnow took a stronger line. He described those who made FOI requests about ghosts as “idiots”; but also accepted it was hard, and undesirable, to try and outlaw requests on certain subjects. He added that such requests did not generally cost large amounts of money to deal with.

Time Limits

MPs on the committee appeared sympathetic to calls from the representatives of WhatDoTheyKnow and the Campaign for Freedom of Information to introduce stricter time limits. The need for time limits was brought into focus during the discussion of the time limits for prosecutions under S.77 of the Act (Offence of altering etc. records with intent to prevent disclosure), very few requests have gone through a response, and internal review, and the Information Commissioner within the time limit for launching a prosecution. An MP suggested making offences under S.77 triable in either a magistrates or a crown court so as to extend the time period while retaining consistency with the rest of the justice system.

Fees

When asked to comment on the idea of introducing fees for all FOI requests Alex said such proposals would be “devastating” and would deter many from making requests. Alex noted that the public had paid for the information in question already, via general taxation, and ought be able to access it.

Exempting Universities

When asked to comment on lobbying from universities to be exempted from FOI, Alex robustly defended their inclusion in the act, pointing to their role in controlling access to professions and awarding degrees. Maurice Frankel and Alex noted the universities’ argument that they were being funded by a decreasing fraction of public money wasn’t really relevant, as that is not the basis on which bodies are deemed to be covered by the Act.

Extending Coverage of FOI

The reach of FOI into commercial organisations carrying out work on behalf of public bodies was briefly discussed however notably there was little further discussion of extending the coverage of FOI, perhaps suggesting this may be a dedicated subject for future evidence session. This session was been described as the committee’s first, suggesting there will be more. At least one of these will presumably hear from the Information Commissioner.

The written evidence we submitted can be read on page 81 of the compendium of submitted evidence (PDF).

MPs are about to review the first five years of the operation of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. We’d like to encourage users of mySociety’s Freedom of Information website WhatDoTheyKnow.com to share their views and experiences with the MPs who are to carry out the review.

The review is being conducted by the House of Commons’ Justice Select Committee.

The committee is currently inviting people to make submissions to it. The deadline for submissions is Friday 3 February 2012.

A memorandum from the Ministry of Justice has been prepared to brief the committee, that document notes, in paragraph 67:

Very little research has been published detailing the views of requesters of information.

Particularly in-light of this we thought it would be worthwhile alerting our users to this review; if we could encourage our users to make submissions to the committee that might help ensure they receive balanced evidence: from outside, as well as within, the public sector.

While the committee is interested in any comments on the act’s operation, specific questions the committee has asked for comment on are:

• Does the Freedom of Information Act work effectively?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the Freedom of Information Act?
• Is the Freedom of Information Act operating in the way that it was intended to?

Responses can be emailed to: justicecommemo@parliament.uk

Details of how responses should be formatted and technical details relating to submission are available on the webpage announcing the call for submissions.

Some time in the middle of last night, our Freedom of Information site WhatDoTheyKnow.com was used to send its 100,000th FOI request. It was a simple one, made to the Queen Victoria Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

WhatDoTheyKnow was launched in February 2008, with these aims: to make it easy to file a FOI request, and to keep a public archive of the requests and (more importantly) the responses received from public bodies. The Freedom of Information Act had been in force since 2005, but we wanted to make it fully accessible to people who were not journalists, lobbyists or professional operatives – it is a law that gives us all a right, not just those experts.

At base, mySociety is about giving people power to people who don’t believe that they have any way of affecting the world around them. Giving practical access to the right enshrined in this Act was and is a meaningful way of advancing that goal.

Then, thanks to a flash of inspiration from our late colleague Chris, we saw a great opportunity to increase the value created by the existence of the Act: we built a system that published the entire exchange of messages between users and public bodies online.

We believe that because of this decision to publish all exchanges with public bodies, WhatDoTheyKnow represents a very unusual phenomenon: a third-party web site that takes an existing piece of legislation and makes it better value for money for the taxpayer. Public money was already being spent answering FOI, but by running WhatDoTheyKnow we could magnify the value generated by each request by making it public, without requiring anyone who worked in a public sector to retrain, buy a new computer system or spend any new money.

And this theory turned out to be right. For every request made on the site, around twenty people come to read materials contained on WhatDoTheyKnow. The multiplier is remarkable, and one of the things that we think is most worth celebrating about this site.

WhatDoTheyKnow’s success is only possible because of a team of fantastically dedicated volunteers. These loyal enthusiasts have helped countless users, and do a simply amazing amount of maintenance work to keep the site friendly, helpful and effective. They are astonishingly talented, principled and knowledgeable, and mySociety owes them a debt of gratitude it will never really be able to pay back.

However, to give them a bit of the credit they deserve, and to highlight some of the countless uses of WhatDoTheyknow, we asked them to pick out some notable requests from the last four years.

Helen “The use of the site by campaign groups like the Campaign for Better Transport to find out about bus subsidy cuts as part of their save our buses campaign.”

John “There was the accidental release of how tax is applied to the Royal Family – which resulted in a Daily Mail front page story.”

Alex “This request about the Warmfront boiler installation scheme has a significant number of annotations. What makes it different is that the user patiently persisted with her original FOI requests, and then has carried on by continuing to help loads more people with details of how to complain and lobby for help and general warm encouragement.”

WhatDoTheyKnow is one of mySociety’s most visited sites, with one and a half million unique visitors in 2011. Like our other projects, it was built as an open source project. Thanks to the Open Society Foundation, we are in the process of making it much easier to re-deploy around the world, under the brand name ‘Alaveteli’.  As we speak, there are sites based on our code in places as far apart as New Zealand, Kosovo, Brazil, and the EU, and we’re looking forward to helping people from around the world create more grandchild sites in the years ahead.

Our 100,000 request milestone comes at an interesting time for the Freedom of Information Act. It’s currently under scrutiny by the Justice Select Committee, who are investigating whether it works effectively and in the way that it was intended.

As you might expect, at mySociety, we’re passionate about the right to information. We’ll be submitting evidence to the Justice Select Committee to show just how vital FOI is to good government and a good society. If FOI has touched your life, you might want to do the same.

December 23rd

If you haven’t got a penny,

A ha’penny will do,

If you haven’t got a ha’penny,

Then God bless you.

We wish you all a merry and prosperous Christmas – and for those of you who are already feeling quite prosperous enough, may we point you in the direction of our charitable donations page?

mySociety’s work is made possible by donations of all sizes and from all sorts of people. Those donations help fund all the online projects we create; projects that give easy access to your civic and democratic rights. If that’s important to you, show your appreciation, and we promise we’ll make the best use of every penny.

Thank you for sticking with us through this month-long post. We hope you’ve found it interesting and we wish you the very merriest of Christmases.

We hope you’ll continue to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+ – see our Contacts page to find individual projects’ social media links.

December 22nd

What’s behind the door? A letter to Santa.

Dear Santa,

We think we’ve been pretty good this year. We’ve tried to keep our local neighbourhood clean, help with problems, and aid those in need, so we’re hoping there are a few presents coming our way.

If you can fit them down the chimney, here’s what we’re dreaming of:

More publicly available data Of course, we were delighted to hear in Mr Osborne’s autumn statement that all sorts of previously-inaccessible data will be opened up.

We’re wondering whether this new era will also answer any of our FixMyStreet geodata wishes. Santa, if you could allocate an elf to this one, we’d be ever so pleased.

Globalisation …in the nicest possible way, of course. This year has seen us work in places previously untouched by the hand of mySociety, including Kenya and the Philippines. And we continue to give help to those who wish to replicate our projects in their own countries, from FixMyStreet in Norway to WhatDoTheyKnow in Germany.

Santa, please could you fix it for us to continue working with dedicated and motivated people all around the world?

A mySociety Masters degree We’re lucky enough to have a team of talented and knowledgeable developers, and we hope we will be recruiting more in the coming year. It’s not always an easy task to find the kind of people we need – after all, mySociety is not your average workplace – so we’ve come to the conclusion that it’s probably easiest to make our own.

Back in February, Tom started thinking about a Masters in Public Technology. It’s still something we’re very much hoping for. Santa, is it true you have friends in academic circles?

FixMyTransport buy-in - from everyone! Regular users of FixMyTransport will have noticed that there are different kinds of response from the transport operators: lovely, fulsome, helpful ones, and formulaic ones. Or, worse still, complete refusal to engage.

Santa, if you get the chance, please could you tell the operators a little secret? Just tell them what those savvier ones already know – that FixMyTransport represents a chance to show off some fantastic customer service. And with 25,000 visitors to the site every week, that message is soon spread far and wide.

December 21st

What’s behind the window? 10 red-faced novice joggers.

It’s not long now until you’ll be making your new year’s resolutions. But will motivation drop off by February? Time to acquaint yourself with one of mySociety’s clever little projects: Hassleme.

Hassleme sends you reminders to do whatever it is you want to do, whether that’s to go for a run, tell someone you love them, or write another chapter of your blockbuster novel. Think of it as benign nagging.

Yes, you could set up your Google calendar to do just the same, but here’s the clever bit – Hassleme sends reminders at “semi-unpredictable intervals” . You can set a rough time period, such as every three days or every year – but you’ll never know precisely when that reminder will drop into your inbox.

You can even make a joint resolution, as a family, perhaps, or even in the office. Input multiple email addresses and we’ll randomise who gets each reminder – ideal for allocating tasks fairly.

Or use it to send a message to yourself ten years hence. Here are some examples from people who have done just that.

December 20th

What’s behind the door? Santa’s little helpers.

mySociety runs some pretty ambitious projects. There’s TheyWorkForYou, which publishes all parliamentary activity since 1935, as well as representatives’ voting records. Then there’s WhatDoTheyKnow, which has sent, and archived, over 30,000 freedom of information requests.

FixMyStreet maps all of Great Britain and sends your reports to the correct council contact. And now we also run FixMyTransport, with its details of over 300,000 public transport routes and stops.

None of these projects runs itself. mySociety’s core team only consists of a few people, so we rely on dedicated volunteers to help us manage the day-to-day maintenance of these sites. Our volunteers have been key to forging a community around each site, and to helping us understand exactly what we want the sites to be.

For example, our FixMyTransport volunteers (aka Anoraks) spend a lot of time leaving helpful comments on users’ problems, often before the operators can get around to answering themselves. Leading by example, they’re making FixMyTransport into a friendly and useful community, encouraging other users to make very constructive contributions, too.

The TheyWorkForYou volunteer team spent quite a bit of time analysing voting records earlier this year, allowing us to add more policy lines to each MP’s page, and providing a snapshot of their affiliations.

And, although WhatDoTheyKnow has been around for three years, the team still find themselves actively debating site policy.

We’re always delighted to welcome new volunteers. If you’re interested, drop us a line at hello@mysociety.org, or come along to one of our pub-meets. There’s one tomorrow! See the Dec 16th advent calendar entry, below, or watch this blog for details of the next one.

December 19th

What’s behind the door? A little donkey.

If you’re using public transport this Christmas, make sure you pack all the essentials: good food, presents – and the web address for FixMyTransport.com.

We hope you have a smooth journey, but if not FixMyTransport will allow you to report overcrowding, delays, or freezing cold carriages – and all on-the-go, if you have a smartphone.

Christmas is for giving, so share that URL with family, friends, and even your fellow passengers, should you find yourself in a coach or train that’s going nowhere. The power to contact the nation’s transport operators directly may just be the greatest gift you’ll ever give.

Well, ok, maybe that’s putting it a bit strongly, but when we see new bus stops being installed, new ticket machines, and longer trains being commissioned, we do start to hear angels sing.

Start your report here, or click on issues near you to see what’s irking passengers in your area. Transport all running smoothly? Lucky you – but the recent issues page is always an interesting read.

December 16th

What’s behind the door? A cup of good cheer.

Our last pub-meet of the year will be the usual chance to come and have a chat with the mySociety team and volunteers. Reindeer antlers and Santa hats are optional, but welcome. Mulled wine may be in evidence. Mince pies could well be found on the premises.

If you’ve been wanting to ask more about any of our projects, to find out about volunteering – or if you would just like a chat and a drink with friendly people – please do pop by.

When? This Wednesday, the 21st of December, from about 6pm and into the evening.

Where? We’ll be at the Prince Arthur, near Euston station in London (map). One or more of us will be wearing a mySociety hooded top, to help you identify us.

One of our New Year’s resolutions is to have meet-ups in places other than London, so if you live outside the capital, watch this space.

Spread the word Because we’re one of those new-fangled digital-type organisations, we encourage use of a hashtag: #mySocial. And you can let us know you’re coming by dropping us a tweet on @mySociety.

December 15th

What’s behind the door? A half-dead Christmas tree.

Christmas comes but once a year… and in its wake, the inevitable slew of dumped Christmas trees and uncollected bins.

In Swindon last year, household bins weren’t collected for three weeks. In Canterbury, a puzzled American tourist mistook the dead fir trees on every street for some kind of crazy English tradition.

Perhaps worse (certainly when it comes to timing), Midnight Mass was made considerably less pleasant for this church-goer in Appledore when he stepped in some dog poop.

We know councils are doing their best to clear things up in the new year, up and down the country – but if those browning Christmas trees, overflowing bins and bottle-littered streets are getting you down, don’t forget FixMyStreet.com.

December 14th

What’s behind the door? A steaming Christmas pudding.

TheyWorkForYou.com keeps a complete record of parliamentary business as far back as 1935. So not only does it  help  you stay up to date with the latest business in Parliament, it also acts as a fascinating, searchable archive.

Consider, for example:

• Why was an American actress refused permission to act in the pantomime Mother Goose? (More details in this 1936 newspaper)
• Just two months after WW2 broke out, which German goods were found on British shelves?
• How many Christmas cards did Tony Blair send in 2004?
• If church bells could only be rung as a signal of invasion, would ringing them on Xmas day cause confusion?
• Was Aberdeen worse hit than the rest of the country when it came to making Christmas puddings?
• Who played Father Christmas at the Westminster party this year?

You can search for any word or phrase on TheyWorkForYou.com. Click on ‘more options’, and you can also restrict the dates you search within.

December 13th

What’s behind the door? An icy pothole.

Does it count as bleak mid-winter yet? After the mild start to the season, in some parts of the country it still feels as if the really cold weather is yet to come.

And yet, the freeze won’t be long in coming. Uneven pavements and potholes turn from a mild inconvenience to a real hazard in the ice – and you will certainly have already noticed if your streetlights aren’t coming on, now that the dark evenings are here.

So here’s for one last big push on our Fix Before the Freeze campaign. Make sure you report all those pesky potholes, uneven pavements, and broken street lights before the snow and ice get here in earnest, and help make your local community a safer place this winter.

December 12th

What’s behind the door? An angelic host, complete with shiny halos.

Our website Pledgebank has been used for some good causes around Christmas time. It’s based on the simple idea of promising that you will do something if other people promise to, too. It’s an effective way of taking an action and multiplying its impact.

In previous years, we’ve seen a pledge to visit people who may be alone at Christmas, and another to walk for an hour on Christmas day, among others.

If you’ve got plans this Christmas – say, donating to charity, giving gifts to the poor, or even organising a party,  Pledgebank could be the tool that tips the balance and helps you get the people-power you need.

Pledgebank isn’t just for individuals: Barnet council have been innovative in their usage of the Pledgebank software for the good of their community. Check out how they are using it to arrange a collection of gifts for the needy, and gritting.

December 9th

What’s behind the door? Frosty the headless snowman.

FixMyStreet is our website for reporting problems such as potholes or broken streetlights, but last January, one user in Brighton and Hove wanted to express his outrage about something else.

Unfortunately, the council have rather less control over the kicking down of snowmen. Much as we sympathise with the frustrated anonymous reporter, we can’t really blame the council for not responding to this particular complaint.

Meanwhile, in Midlothian, we see nature doing the fixing but the council apparently taking the credit, much to our user’s displeasure.

If your neighbourhood suffers from uncleared snow, by all means use FixMyStreet.com to report it this year. If you feel the gritting could have been better, report it. If your snowman suffers an injury, however, maybe keep it to yourself.

December 8th

What’s behind the door? A boring old bauble again.

What is a “Christmas Tree bill”?

A search through Hansard reveals that this is a commonly-used term in Parliament, and it refers to a bill which, as it passes through its various stages, has all sorts of “baubles” hung on it – that is to say, small, unrelated issues which are added to the main legislation.

The term apparently originated in the States, but has become commonplace in UK parliamentary discourse – and indeed provides an opportunity for some florid extemporising, as David Burrowes, Private Secretary, demonstrated recently in a debate about knife crime:

“As we look forward to Christmas and see today the Third Reading of a criminal justice Bill, I am reminded of previous Government Bills that ended up as Christmas tree Bills with baubles being hung on them at any given opportunity as they went through Parliament. I am sure that as this Bill goes to the other place, Ministers will want to ensure that further baubles are not hung on it in the form of extra pieces of law that take the fancy of noble Lords, as well as any little elves.”

Did you know that you can subscribe to any word or phrase on TheyWorkForYou? It’s very handy for making sure you know whenever your pet topic is debated. Set up your alert here.

December 7th

What’s behind the door? A kindly Santa Claus

Our website WriteToThem.com allows you to contact your elected representatives – even if you don’t know who they are.

When you input your postcode, you’re given a list of your local councillors, MPs, MEPs and anyone else who represents you in any of our governmental bodies. The site then allows you to contact them directly.

That’s all very well, but what about the highest administration of them all – the one who decides if you’ve been naughty or nice? Sadly, WriteToThem.com does not cover Lapland, but we do have a helpful page providing Santa’s postal address in full.

Meanwhile, it’s just a thought – but you might find that putting your wishlist in front of your local representatives actually has more effect than a letter sent up the chimney, especially if it concerns your civic or community rights. Start here.

December 6th

What’s behind the door? A fizzling, blinking neon light

Our parents always told us that if decorations weren’t removed by Twelfth Night, terrible things would happen – but it seems that some councils are not so superstitious. Users of our website FixMyStreet reveal the occasionally erratic handling of this tradition.

7th of January was already too late for a resident of Durham. How would he have felt had he lived in Thatcham, where decorations were still up on the 18th of January?

It gets worse. In Birmingham, one lonely decoration was spotted on the 31st of January. In Consett, not only were the decorations taken down after Epiphany had passed, but they had been on 24 hours a day for the entire Xmas period. In the village of Cark, the Christmas tree was blocking access to a car park in early February. But we think Bournemouth takes the prize, with a Christmas decoration reported as still being in place on the 15th of March.

People are always complaining that Christmas starts too early – and now it seems it’s also dragging on too late. If you’d like to report council decorations that have outstayed their welcome, don’t forget FixMyStreet.com this January.

The 5th of January, in fact, if you’d like to adhere to Twelfth Night superstition. We’ll be looking out for the spike in users on that day.

December 5th

What’s behind the door? An inn, with no vacancies over the Christmas period

It’s more than 2,000 years since a heavily pregnant Mary was told there was no room at the inn. With zoning restrictions a thing of the far-distant future, an empty stable was repurposed for her use, and… well, you know the rest.

Today, if there’s an empty stable (or, more likely, a house) near you, Channel 4 want to know about it. They are broadcasting the first in their Great British Property Scandal series tonight, examining the causes behind homelessness.

Key to the campaign is the fact that there are over a million empty properties in the UK, while two million families need a home. On their site you’ll find an empty property spotter tool, which allows you to report any vacant buildings to your council. There’s also an app.

Those tools have been built by a crack team of mySociety developers, drawing on our extensive experience of mashing up postcode and constituency data, and sending reports off to the right council contacts. If you’re wondering where we honed such skills, look no further than FixMyStreet, WriteToThem, and TheyWorkForYou, among other mySociety projects.

Not everyone knows that mySociety are available for contracting. All revenue from our commercial activities goes towards funding our not-for-profit projects. It’d really make our Christmas special if you were to spread the word, next time you hear of someone in need of innovative and really rather well-priced development work.

December 2nd

What’s behind the door? Ten Lords a-tweeting

Why is a Christmas card better than a tweet? It turns out not to be the start of a bad joke…

As Roger Gale MP revealed in a debate on the use of electronic devices (including mobile phones) in the Chamber of the House of Commons, “multi-tasking and a dual use of time” means that in the six weeks before Christmas “committee tables will suddenly be piled with Christmas cards being signed while Members are also participating in Committee business”.

Gale’s point is that such behaviour is excusable, but that having MPs updating their Twitter and Facebook statuses in the Chamber would be a bridge too far. What do you reckon? Personally we’d rather have a stream of useful comment, accessible from our phones or desktop computers, than a hastily-signed Christmas card.

Whether you’re a social media junkie, or agree that such things are unwelcome in the workplace, the entire debate is worth a read – along with hundreds of thousands of other speeches and statements from Lords and MPs, available on mySociety’s TheyWorkForYou.com.

December 1st

Children everywhere open the first door of their Advent calendars today – and we’re digging deep into the mySociety vat of Christmas spirit and presenting our very own countdown to the 25th. Didn’t think a civic and democratic charity had much in common with Christmas? Well, we’re here to prove otherwise.

Between now and the 25th, we’ll be updating this post each weekday with a Christmassy nugget from our archives. Enjoy them, and here’s hoping that Santa brings you whatever your heart desires, whether it’s the reply to that FOI request you put in on WhatDoTheyKnow.com, or the improved bus service you asked for on FixMyTransport.com.

What’s behind the door? A string of flashing lights

As Christmas lights go on in towns and cities across the country, your inner Scrooge might be prompted to ask just how much they’re costing the public purse.

Never fear, Bah Humbuggers, for this is a topic that has been thoroughly explored by the users of our Freedom of Information request website WhatDoTheyKnow.com. See, for example, how Manchester cannily bartered for free celebrity appearances last year, while Lewisham puts importance on low-energy lightbulbs.

You can also check Westminster, Lewes, and Cardiff’s costs – and plenty more besides. We think that Leeds has the highest expenditure mentioned, at £477,600 for this year, but leave us a comment if you find a higher one.

Don’t forget that if you want to know how much your own council spent on Christmas decorations – or indeed anything else – you have the right to submit an  FOI request. Just remember to check that the information isn’t already available online before you do.

The graph shows our share of FOI requests sent to central Departments of State jumped to 14.6% in the 1st quarter of 2011.

This time round, the top 3 departments were:

1. Home Office (which includes the UK Border Agency, CRB & Identity & Passport Service) – 254 requests out of 866 – 29%
2. Department for Education – 81 requests out of 328 – 25%
3. Department for Communities and Local Government – 59 requests out of 250 – 24%

Many of the WhatDoTheyKnow users contacting the Home Office & UK Border Agency are trying to find out information about their own immigration case.  We regularly receive emails from applicants asking for help, as they have often been waiting months (or even years in some cases) for an official update to their case, often with the UKBA holding on to identity documents or passport.  Applicants then feel they have to resort to making FOI requests. Many of these are auto-replied by this standard FAQ, and applicants don’t receive a personal answer.  The large 29% share of all Home Office requests suggests that the normal contact methods to keep people updated aren’t working or even that their service is simply struggling with demand.  It’s also likely that they don’t consider these types of requests as formal FOI requests, so it is worth noting that we are likely to be slightly overstating the percentage share figures.

Free schools were a popular topic for the Department of Education – 9 out of 81 requests were on this subject, and nearly all were refused on the basis that information would be published at some unspecified date in the future.

To understand the limitations of the data analysis, please see here.

One interesting trend that has been consistently seen is that FOI requests are more frequent in odd-numbered quarters compared to even ones – if you have any ideas why this may be the case, please add them to the comments!

Member of the National Secular Society Robert Christian used mySociety’s Freedom of Information site, WhatDoTheyKnow to ask all 227 English NHS “provider” Trusts about how much they spend on chaplaincy.

On the 28th of February 2011 the results of his research were published in an article on the National Secular Society website (full report [PDF]). He found that £29m of NHS funds were used to pay chaplains in 2009/10 and also observed a wide variation in the amount, as a fraction of total spend, that specific trusts were spending on chaplaincy.

The publication of the research prompted a number of articles in the UK media. eg. (Daily Mail, The Independent, The Mirror).

Mr Christian has commented:

“To have identified the right FOI contact for every provider NHS Trust in England would have been daunting if not impossible. I doubt that my study would ever have got off the ground without WDTK. I particularly valued the way that the site tracks which Trust has and has not yet responded. I liked the capability to thank each FOI lead after they had responded.”

The fact that making requests via WhatDoTheyKnow allowed Mr Christian to cite the source of his raw data was important to him. He added:

“The transparency of the raw data is, I think, one of the main strengths of the WDTK website for three reasons. First, I was able to hyperlink every piece of data back to its source – and that meant that it was easy for colleagues from the NSS to check the accuracy of the data (with so many Trusts a transcription error was always a possibility). Second, it ensured that if anyone had wanted to challenge the accuracy of the data they could be directed to see that the study was simply quoting the Trusts’ own information. Third, it means that the data is there for future reference to see if there are any changes over the coming years.”

mySociety and WhatDoTheyKnow are non-partisan and don’t get involved in campaigning except in specific areas relating to openness and transparency. We take no view on issues such as how much, if anything, the NHS ought be paying for chaplaincy. However we welcome campaign groups making use of our services.

Bulk Requests

WhatDoTheyKnow currently has around 2-4 “bulk requests” per month made via its site. At the moment we don’t provide any mechanism to make bulk requests automatically. We are considering adding such a system, for requests which have been sanity checked by the WhatDoTheyKnow team. The provision of such a system would probably be associated with a mechanism for preventing other “bulk requests” from being made without the site administrators’ explicit approval.

Making the requests is only a small part of the work involved in a study such as that carried out by Mr Christian. Chasing public bodies for responses, as well as collating and analysing the information released is likely to be much more time consuming than submitting the requests themselves. This is something Mr Christian agrees with, stating:

“If enquirers are not prepared to individually contact each organisation to ask the question, I would doubt their commitment to retrieve and analyse the information (as that is actually a much bigger task)”.

Clearly any facility for enabling requests to be made in bulk will have to incorporate safeguards to ensure responsible use.

Whereas Mr Christian has been happy to conduct his research in public, and still been able to generate media coverage following publication, we are aware that many campaign groups, and others such as journalists, like to make Freedom of Information requests in private.

Mr Christian has commented on the issue of “scoops” and the effect of conducting his research in public:

“The question of ‘scoops’ is an issue for journalists and in fact this problem did happen in this case. Someone appears to have trawled the WDTK know site and noticed what I was doing. A short piece was run by the Daily Express before we completed and published the study. So clearly this might be an issue. But the risk of a spoiler being run will tend to be low when the number of organisations being contacted is large. This is because the amount of work needed to collate and analyse the data is enormous and so casual trawling will show only that a question is being asked – not what the conclusions are.”

In order to get as great a fraction of the total number of FOI responses available on WhatDoTheyKnow we have also been considering an option for making requests in private, for a fee. The idea would be that once the findings were published then the FOI response could be opened up to the public providing access to the source material backing up the story.

Any views on our ideas for the future and on the way WhatDoTheyKnow has been used for this, and similar, research would be welcome in the comments below.