WeWorkForThem.com
Describe your idea:
A website containing publicly-available information of the directorships, significant shareholdings and interests of the UK’s (perhaps the world’s) richest private citizens.
This would double as a register of companies and the individuals with a stake in them.
Put simply, this site would do for Companies House what TheyWorkForYou.com has done for Hansard.
What problem does it solve?:
The private sector has as great an influence over society as the public sector. In turn, the private sector is influenced greatly by a relatively small number of individuals and organisations.
There is much publicly available information on these individuals and organisations, but it is contained in disparate and often user-unfriendly sources. I believe the TheyWorkForUs.com platform could be repurposed to make this information more accessible and easier to understand.
Just as TheyWorkForUs.com has served as an informal focal point for citizen engagement in political machinations, WeWorkForThem.com could do the same for the private sector.
Also, a little public scrutiny never did anyone’s honesty and responsibility any harm.
Type of idea: A brand new project
I think this would be good, it would be difficult to get the data though Companies House sells information about companies and directorships they might not want to lose that revenue.
It costs something like £2 to get the info from companies house — people who are interested could “pay” for the service by personally getting information from Companies House and copying the data onto this website, perhaps?
(Or, perhaps companies house has got this wrapped up IP-wise…)
great idea for polotitions and ex polotitions, would work for anyone on public pay because of the registers of members interests