Apologies to Cllr McKeown for pronouncing his name wrongly in this video! Here’s a better pronunciation. 

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The Council Climate Action Scorecards is a joint project between mySociety and Climate Emergency UK.

Annie from Climate Emergency UK chatted to Cllr Mike McKeown, Cabinet Lead for Climate Change and Sustainability at Cotswold District Council, about how they’ve used the Scorecards to improve their climate action — and some of the barriers they still face from a national level in delivering Net Zero. 

How does AI know so much?

We always begin by asking how people first come across our sites, and the answers are rarely surprising: through word of mouth, via the events we do, et cetera. But Councillor McKeown’s answer was a new one on us:

“I first discovered the Scorecards via Chat GPT. I use AI a lot in my day job and when I was elected a councillor in May 2023, I asked Chat GPT for an assessment of my councils’ climate action. It came back with quite a detailed answer, so I asked it where it got this information from, and it explained that this information was found from the Council Climate Action Scorecards site.”

Good to know the robots are on board! But no matter how people find the Scorecards, the result is the same: a rich source of useful and applicable data.    

Looking inwards and outwards

“I’ve used the Scorecards in two main ways,” explains Councillor McKeown. “Firstly, to create pressure for, and focus on, our work on climate action. I presented the Scorecards at a council cabinet meeting and showed how our results compared across other councils in Gloucestershire. This was a useful level set for our council to see where we actually sat and how we could improve. 

“It is helpful to be able to point to an independent assessment of our council’s climate action, and use the ranking that the Scorecards give us as a way to push for further actions in areas where we didn’t do so well. 

“I know myself and some of the councillors were surprised when the Scorecards came out that we didn’t have a higher score. And this reaction has been used to drive our work to ensure that our score will improve for the next Scorecards. We’ve used the Scorecards at a senior management level to see a general oversight of where we’re at, as well as at a micro level, to understand specific project work with staff.” 

A framework for action

How does the council keep track of work at every level?

“We’ve set up a Climate Board as a way to review and monitor it. I brought it in after participating in the Climate Leadership Academy by UK100, who recommend a Climate Board within councils. It’s basically a series of regular meetings with senior officers from across the council. 

“One of the resources we used to review our climate work is the Scorecards. We use them as a framework to see what our current answers are and what we need to do to improve. We also plan to use the Scorecards going forward to monitor our progress.”

Real life results

Have there been any positive impacts yet?

“Yes – I’d like to share a climate project of ours which links directly to one of the Scorecards questions. We’ve secured funding from the South West Net Zero Hub to employ a retrofit officer. They’re going to be going out into the community to talk to residents and work with them to understand what retrofit is and encourage them to take the next steps to make a difference to their homes. 

“We’re also part of a partnership with all other district councils in Gloucestershire and other public sector organisations, called Climate Leadership Gloucestershire. As part of this, we have launched the retrofit centre. 

“This is a website that provides advice to residents on how to retrofit their homes. They can either use the site to create their own retrofit plan through the website portal, or they can reach out to be connected with a person who can come and do an assessment of their home in person. The site also includes a list of trusted suppliers for different aspects of home retrofit work.” 

The solution for a more effective transition

Councillor McKeown then went on to explain some of the barriers to council climate action and suggested a solution. 

“For so much of our work, the biggest barrier is resource rather than money. Often we don’t have the people able to deliver the work — so funding that doesn’t include the budget to cover additional staff to deliver the work isn’t as helpful. 

“For example, we’re seeing if we can extend the deadline by which we have to spend some funding from the Department of Transport on installing EV chargers. Many of the car parks in our area have national monument status — lots of Roman ruins! — so they require additional planning permission which takes time to secure. We do want to install the EV chargers and we’re sure the Department of Transport won’t want the money back, but we need more time to actually install them. 

“This is just one example of why a fully funded statutory duty would be so helpful for councils to more effectively deliver Net Zero. Currently, so much of what councils do for Net Zero is as a result of goodwill: it is beyond our statutory duty and we do it because we and our residents care.”

Many thanks to Councillor McKeown for sharing his experiences. 

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Image: Stergios K

Bracknell Forest Council don’t just comply with the Council Climate Action Scorecards marking — they proactively publish all the relevant information on their website.

Climate Emergency UK’s assessment of all UK councils on the actions they’ve taken towards net zero is a complex process that involves seeking the required evidence from each council. As you can imagine, when we discovered that Bracknell Forest had put it all in one place ready for the marking process, we were very impressed. 

We spoke to Will Barnes, Climate Change Officer, to find out more. How did the council first come across the Scorecards?

“Originally, it was one of our councillors who brought them to the attention of council officers. With climate change being a top priority for the council, both councillors and officers have gone on to take a particular interest in the Scorecards methodology and results.”

As Will continues, he confirms our belief that the Scorecards are not just a useful tool for the public: they also provide an invaluable service for councils themselves.

“We now use the Scorecards as one way of having our climate action independently and externally assessed. 

“We use it as a way of marking our progress on tackling climate change as a council, and benchmarking ourselves against how other single tier councils are doing, and what they are doing too. 

“To support this process, we have been centralising answers and evidence on the council website to assist the scorecard markers and to make this information available to the public too.”

We are so impressed to hear this, on many levels. Of course, we’re very grateful that the work of assessing the council has been made easier; but we also admire the transparency with which Bracknell Forest has approached the project, for the benefit of the public.

We’ve heard how the Scorecards help the council and the general public. There’s one more person benefitting — Will himself.

“Having started in my role as Climate Change Officer four months ago, I’ve found that the Scorecards have helped me to understand the climate action already taking place across all corners of the council. 

“They’ve also helped me to identify potential opportunities for further projects which we could implement in support of our ambition to be net zero by as close to 2030 as possible.

The climate change team work to embed and promote sustainable practices and initiatives across the council, and the Scorecards have provided us with ideas for action and have supported us to put projects forward to various teams for consideration. 

“In doing so, they’ve played a part in the progress that has been made on a range of projects since the 2023 Scorecards. For instance, we now have a social value policy in place that aligns procurement and contracting activity with our commitment to address the climate emergency and achieve net-zero carbon emissions. 

“One of the workstreams of our new business change project is focused on delivering carbon awareness training across council teams, and the Public Protection Partnership (PPP) have developed a project plan to enforce the Minimum Energy Efficiency Standard (MEES) for privately rented domestic properties in the borough. 

“Projects like these will help us to achieve our ambitions of tackling climate change and reducing emissions in Bracknell Forest.”

That’s great — thanks very much to Will for sharing his experiences. We don’t think we’ve come across any other councils proactively publishing their evidence like this before, but as we hope this case study shows, it’s beneficial all round. Perhaps others will follow where Bracknell Forest leads. We hope so!

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Image: Alan Hunt (CC BY-SA 2.0)

mySociety’s Transparency team has developed a new tool, the Excel Analyser, which helps reduce the potential harms associated with accidental releases of large amounts of personal information.

The Excel Analyser scans spreadsheets before they are published on WhatDoTheyKnow, identifying metadata types that are often the cause of large data breaches, such as pivot cache data, hidden sheets, columns, rows, named ranges, and cached data from external links or data models.

If problematic metadata types and combinations are detected, the file is automatically prevented from being published on WhatDoTheyKnow.

This helps to reduce the risk that sensitive information is accidentally published online, and limits the harm that such releases can cause. The WhatDoTheyKnow team is alerted when a file has been blocked, which allows them to quickly delete any problematic material and inform the relevant authority that there has been a breach.

In cases where it’s unclear if a data breach has occurred, the authority is alerted that hidden data has been detected in their response, and given the opportunity to send a replacement file if necessary.

As well as Excel Analyser, the potentially problematic files are run through additional scripts that use Microsoft’s Presidio Analyzer tool to detect the presence of personally identifiable information within the hidden data itself. This enables the team to assess and address potential data breaches without needing to download or directly access the files themselves.

By communicating with authorities in this way, the ultimate hope is to reduce the number of data breaches involving Excel. In almost all cases, the relevant data could have been detected by authorities, and removed prior to release, using Excel’s built-in Document Inspector tool.

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Image: Simon Lee

Are you an individual or an organisation who’s used the Right to Information to have a positive impact on society — or perhaps you know one that has?

Either way, you can celebrate great use of FOI by nominating it for an Access Info Impact Award. The winner will be invited to present their work in front of an international audience at the Open Government Partnership Summit in Madrid, with travel expenses covered.

Find all the details on Access Info’s website here – but better get to it, as nominations close on 9 September.

WhatDoTheyKnow and Reddit: bring them together, and amazing things can happen — as we’ve discovered from one of our users.

We’ve been talking to Yasmin Marsh, who, as part of a small collective of NHS doctors and staff named PA Project Watch group, is investigating concerns around the use of under-qualified medical staff in NHS hospitals and GP surgeries. With a combination of facts received through Freedom of Information requests, and on the ground experience from members of the r/DoctorsUK subreddit, they’ve created a change in policy in at least one NHS Trust.

What is a PA?

We asked Yasmin to explain the basics of PA Project Watch’s campaign to us, and anyone else who might not know the finer details of how the NHS functions. So first of all, what does the PA in the group’s name refer to?

“It’s ‘Physician Associate‘, a role previously known as a ‘Physician Assistant’,” she explained. 

“A PA is a member of the healthcare team who works under the supervision of a senior doctor to help care for patients. You can train to become a PA with a 24 month MSc or PgDip. 

“The role was originally designed so that PAs would always work under the supervision of senior doctors and assist the medical team in caring for patients.”

The trouble with PAs

OK, so what’s the issue with PAs? 

“Because no official rules have been set around what they can or can’t do”, says Yasmin, “they’ve been used inappropriately by NHS hospitals and GP surgeries to replace doctors.”

In these stretched times, it’s perhaps inevitable that shortages are being addressed by any means possible? Yasmin agrees:

“You can see the temptation for NHS managers and GP surgeries — if there are doctor shortages, fill the gaps with PAs instead. They’re also cheaper than doctors!”

Yasmin told us that the General Medical Council are planning to introduce regulation later this year, but meanwhile, there are potential dangers around this situation. 

“I’ve seen first-hand the problems of using PAs,” she said. “It comes back to the old saying ‘you don’t know what you don’t know’. As they’ve only done a 24 month course, they miss covering lots of important topics, and the topics they do cover are only covered in superficial depth, skimming over lots of important medical topics briefly. There’s a reason medical school is five to six years!

“So, for example, when looking at a patient’s blood tests, I’ve seen a PA miss a common critical abnormality because they simply lacked knowledge — they’d never been taught about that particular blood test abnormality or what it means. If you speak to doctors, these types of errors are happening through the use of PAs up and down the country.”

So how critical is it?

“There have been several deaths of patients due to mistakes made by PAs, which have been reported by the BBC¹, the Manchester Evening News², and in two stories from the Telegraph³.”

WhatDoTheyKnow and Reddit

So that certainly explains the groups’ concerns, and their desire to do something about it — now, how did WhatDoTheyKnow and Freedom of Information come into the picture? 

Yasmin hadn’t been fully familiar with the concept before: “I had heard of FOI requests, but I never knew they could be submitted by anybody. I thought you had to be a journalist or an investigator to submit them. However, I found WhatDoTheyKnow through Google when looking for another topic about my local council, and then discovered that anyone could send them.”

And what about the link with Reddit? Yasmin’s shared FOI responses as the group has received them, allowing for vital scrutiny of the information provided, from those working in the settings in question, who are able to compare the responses with their own experiences.

“Reddit has been central to this campaign. I’d really emphasise the role of the /r/DoctorsUK community. Without them, this would not have been possible.”

A strong example comes from the FOI request sent to Torbay Hospital.

“We received a message from a Reddit user who said this hospital was using PAs inappropriately to replace doctors, often in the paediatric department, but also covering other gaps in the hospital rota like the surgery and medicine departments.

“After this message, I sent an FOI request to the hospital, asking them how many times doctors had been replaced by PAs. They replied: 

None, physician associates are not permitted to cover doctor’s shifts.

“We then posted this on the r/DoctorsUK community asking if this was true, and for any evidence that PAs were replacing doctors. We received testimony from paediatric nursing staff and a rota, showing that PAs regularly replaced doctors in the paediatric department. This demonstrated that the hospital’s response was false. 

“We then challenged the hospital’s response by requesting an internal review, which led to them admitting that PAs did cover rota gaps in paediatrics and other departments.

“Did they deliberately try to cover up the situation? Or was this an administrative mistake? We’ll never know. Without Reddit, we would have just accepted the original response and never pushed for the internal review.”

Real-life results

And as for whether the request has had any impact? Yasmin confirms that the Trust says they’ve now stopped substituting PAs for doctors.

PA Project Watch continue in their work. “We’re now asking other hospitals to see if they have been substituting doctors for PAs, and uncovered further evidence: for example, Royal Berkshire sent us a spreadsheet of shifts where PAs had covered for doctors. This story was featured in the Daily Mail, although unfortunately without a credit.”

And perhaps as a further effect of this campaigning, doctors are now taking legal action against the General Medical Council, because while the GMC is planning to regulate PAs as Yasmin points out, “they could still technically do anything a doctor could do. 

“This is the central argument of the Anaesthetists United legal case — they want the GMC to create a clear set of limits on the tasks PAs can perform, to avoid them being used inappropriately.”

But Yasmin’s clear where the problem lies and it’s not with the PAs themselves. “They’ve been let down by their leadership at the Faculty of Physician Associates, taken advantage of by the NHS, and thrust into roles for which they are unqualified and underprepared. 

“Unfortunately, the NHS culture makes it really difficult to speak up about these issues. We’re trying to shine a light on what’s happening, and FOI gives us the power to do this — but we’re finding many Trusts are now refusing to answer requests about PAs, and we’re having to involve the ICO more and more.”

Thanks so much to Yasmin for sharing this important campaign. It’s great to see the journey from FOI novice to FOI expert! 

It’s clear that the group now has enough knowledge to request an internal review to challenge an erroneous response, and to appeal to the ICO when an authority hasn’t met their responsibilities under the FOI Act — and we’re glad that WhatDoTheyKnow has been part of that learning process, not to mention the results that have come from it.

Video summary:

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¹ BBC: Misdiagnosis: Bereaved mum calls for physician associate role clarity

² Manchester Evening News: Gran died after ‘physician’s associate’ left treatment in place for 16 HOURS longer than allowed

³ The Telegraph: Man died from rare heart problem after being discharged from hospital
Family of film make-up artist call for inquest after treatment by physician associate

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Image: implusq

WhatDoTheyKnow provides an easy way for anyone to exercise their rights under the FOI Act. 

While requests are made by individuals, the information that is received through the site is automatically published, making it openly available to all and enhancing opportunities for the information released to inform public debate. 

WhatDoTheyKnow may be viewed as a service, like a library, which provides access to information to anyone that walks through the doors, and does not hold an opinion about the information it holds. In this way, it reflects the ‘applicant blind’ principle that is woven into the FOI Act: this states that a person’s identity has no bearing on their right to information.

And, as with a library, different users may walk away with the knowledge they acquire, and apply it in many and various ways. They may form new views based on the factual information they have accessed. These views may lead them to believe that there is an injustice or abuse in the world that should be campaigned against. Another user may look at the same information and come to quite different conclusions.

WhatDoTheyKnow is not a campaigning platform

While the information received via FOI requests may inspire and inform campaigns — and often does, as evidenced by our many case studies — WhatDoTheyKnow is not, in itself, a platform for campaigning. 

Our on-site guidance and user interface actively discourage users from including anything more than a clear, concise request for information in their use of the site. Where our attention is drawn to content that exceeds this remit, we remove it. One of the reasons for this is that we want WhatDoTheyKnow to help people of all kinds to make good requests that are likely to get information released — keeping requests concise, precise, polite and to the point all help to make it easy for authorities to respond positively to a request. 

We are more than happy when requests are linked to from websites or news stories — indeed, via our ‘citations’ tool, users can link back — links back to the information supplied by public authorities can increase the credibility of evidence-based journalism and campaigning. 

mySociety services as infrastructure

At mySociety, we run a number of different tools and websites. At first glance, they might appear to be quite disparate; but they all spring from a single principle: they are tools that empower people to be active within civic life.

TheyWorkForYou makes it easier to stay informed about our democracy, while WriteToThem gives a channel for communication with your elected representatives. FixMyStreet removes the barriers from reporting street issues to the authorities responsible for fixing them. Our tools around Climate provide the data and information people need to understand actions being taken by their local governments.

 And then there’s WhatDoTheyKnow, which simplifies the process of exercising the rights to information conferred by the FOI Act.

When you see all these sites together, it’s easy to see that mySociety services provide a layer of democratic infrastructure, supporting everyone’s right to our foundational principles of democracy, community, and transparency.

Our tools are for everyone

That our tools are for everyone is an important point. We want our services to be open to, and used by, as broad a range of people as possible. 

We don’t just provide a service to those who share our view of the world. Whilst we very much support campaigners making use of their rights under FOI through our service, as per our current policies, WhatDoTheyKnow is not a platform for promoting those campaigns or a particular point of view. The site is, like the FOI Act, open to everyone (so long as they abide by our house rules).

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Image: Philip Strong

Prefer to watch this post as a video? Scroll down to the end.

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The Council Climate Action Scorecards are compiled by a cohort of volunteers, trained up by Climate Emergency UK. They’re currently recruiting for the next round of marking, so if that sounds like something you’d like to be involved with, check out the details here.

The knowledge that volunteers acquire isn’t just applicable to the Scorecards: it upskills them for life, empowering them to apply their knowledge to informed climate action. In that way, the benefits of the Scorecards project are more longlasting, and spread further than we might have expected!

Fiona Dyer was part of the volunteer cohort of 2023, and she shared her journey from climate-concerned to climate-informed. Her story can inspire us all — especially those who may be feeling powerless or hopeless in the face of the climate crisis.

Fiona explains: “At the start of the COVID pandemic I had to retire early from the NHS to look after my mum. I had more time to read, and the more I read, the more concerned I felt about the impact global heating and biodiversity loss was going to have on my children’s future. Across the world people were already suffering. 

“I heard about the CE UK Scorecards project from a friend, and decided volunteering would be something positive I could do that I could fit around my other commitments. I doubted whether my computing skills would be adequate, but the CE UK team was friendly and supportive, and we volunteers learnt from each other via a chat forum. 

“Reading through councils’ climate action plans to find information was challenging at times, but it also gave me a good understanding of the scope, powers and potential influence councils have to help communities mitigate and adapt to the challenges that lie ahead.” 

So, that’s where it started — but it’s certainly not where it ended! Fiona goes on to tell us how she could bring that acquired knowledge to a whole new arena.

“I went on to join Climate Action Durham (CAD), and learned that they’d held a Citizens’ Forum on Climate Action the year before, in collaboration with Durham County Council. 

“I suggested we used the Scorecards at the next forum, as up to date, publicly available research that would give us a better understanding of the breadth of topics councils should be addressing, as well as performance data. 

“It was agreed that by using the Scorecards we could more easily assess the council’s climate response plan: its strengths and weaknesses, how it compared with similar and neighbouring councils and how we could gauge improvement over time. 

“The citizens’ forum was held in the autumn, timed to be just after the publication of the Scorecards. As we had already established a ‘critical friend’ type relationship with the council, it was agreed that the introduction to the forum would be given by myself, alongside the council’s Neighbourhoods and Climate Change Corporate Director. 

“My presentation was a combination of some of the council’s own slides and slides I created using Scorecards data, chosen to highlight issues that would help focus discussion in the work groups that followed. 

“I would not have had the confidence to do this without my experience of being a Scorecards volunteer, as I have no previous experience in this area. It was also an opportunity for me to champion the broader agenda of increasing local democracy. “

That’s the increased confidence that knowledge can bring. And then, as Fiona explains, the event itself was enriched and informed by the Scorecards data.

“The Citizens’ Forum on Climate Action was open to anyone who wanted to attend. People were asked to choose the work group they wanted to be part of in advance: these broadly aligned with the Scorecard categories and they were given the link to the Scorecards website. 

“The questions and scores in each of the Scorecards categories enabled us to be more effective in scrutinising the council’s performance. 

“The council said they welcomed CAD’s involvement in consulting the public on its climate plans and being held to account in a constructive way.”

And from this one day emerged some longterm outcomes:

“The feedback from the forum work groups was written up in detail as a report, including nine specific recommendations. Where possible I used my Scorecards knowledge to cite examples of good practice by other councils for each recommendation, these were included as footnote references. 

“For example, Bristol use an Eco Impact Checklist that is applied to all their new projects. This report was shared with the council and made available to the public via the CAD website. 

“CAD members who facilitated the groups in the forum have continued to work with the relevant councillors, to varying degrees, as the next iteration of their climate plan is being developed. We will see how many of the recommendations are included in the new plan when it is published later this year. 

“As a group we intend to continue supporting, lobbying and campaigning where it is needed. We have just set up Durham Climate Hub, part of a national network of climate emergency centres and are continuing to work with the council’s community engagement officer. In the run up to this year’s forum we plan to hold sessions in the Hub on some of the forum themes to increase interest and participation from a broader section of the public. 

“I have suggested CE UKs training to various other groups, one of which I have co-hosted with CE UK using my local knowledge. It feels good to be playing my part in raising awareness of the challenges we face and working creatively with other people to improve local resilience, not forgetting the bigger picture and fundamental need for system change.”

Fiona’s account is a phenomenal example of how citizens can work together with their local councils to understand, oversee and encourage better climate action. It shows how the Scorecards training has a ripple effect that is tangible and longlasting. 

Big thanks to Fiona for sharing her experience — we hope it will inspire others who are looking for a way to take practical and productive action on climate issues.

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Image: David Ross

 

mySociety is currently helping to support knowledge-sharing between organisations and individuals who run Access to Information projects around the world, in a community of practice.

Several such folk were in London for our TICTeC conference last month, providing a perfect opportunity to come together in person and share insights.

Matt Stempeck of the Civic Tech Field Guide has written the discussions up in full (he also deftly explains the slight difference, terminology-wise, between Freedom of Information and Access to Information) and you can read his account here.

Meanwhile, here are the top-line topics that were under discussion:

• Logistics How do you facilitate a community of very busy people, spread across multiple countries and speaking different languages — and how do you ensure that interventions are timely and productive? The group discussed which types on online communication and touchpoints work best for them; how to ensure topics are relevant to their immediate needs; and on which platforms it’s possible to talk about challenges just as freely as successes.
• Measuring impact Are there consistent metrics we could be collecting across all ATI projects to demonstrate and compare impact? What are the individual issues experienced by each project that impede the collection of such metrics?
• Governments What are the issues that groups face within different countries, with differing levels of governmental tolerance towards ATI?
• Engagement How do projects educate the public about their rights to information, and encourage more of them to use these rights?
• Journalism How can ATI projects work with newsrooms or individual journalists to discover stories and, incidentally, also help spread awareness of ATI? In which ways does the ATI process not fit well with journalists’ needs?
• Funding One area where the network can offer useful peer support is in swapping notes over where they source funding, and other potential channels of income. Some funders were also present, and so were able to give their valuable perspectives too.

If any of these topics spark your interest, hop over to Matt’s account for the full details.

mySociety is supporting the international Access to Information community of practice alongside the Civic Tech Field Guide, Access Info Europe and Open Knowledge Germany.

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Banner image: James Cameron

Whether or not you were lucky enough to attend TICTeC in person earlier this month, you can now experience it all over again.

Where there are videos and slides for a session, you can access them via the Schedule page. Just click on ‘see session detail’ to see which resources there are. Or discover all the videos via the TICTeC 24 YouTube playlist.

Note: Videos and slides are only available for sessions that were recorded, and where presenters gave consent to share.

Plus: browse through photos from the two days of TICTeC 24 on our Flickr page, here. All photos are available under a non-commercial Creative Commons licence, so please do share them where you like.

Don’t miss TICTeC 2025!

Work with us at TICTeC 2025: we’re open to suggestions from organisations who might like to partner with us to host TICTeC in your region; and we’re also always happy to talk to potential sponsors. Drop us a line if you’d like to discuss more.

Subscribe to updates: Be the first to know when we put out the call for papers, open bookings and announce the location for next year’s TICTeC — sign up here.

Thanks for your feedback

We love hearing what other people got out of TICTeC! Special thanks to those who have taken time to feed back on what those two days meant to them.

Here are just a couple of the comments we’ve received: follow us on Instagram to see more over the next few weeks.

 

We’re hugely excited to be warmly welcoming an incredible set of new trustees onto the mySociety Board. We’re delighted to have six new board members round our table:

Alastair Tibbitt is a journalist and digital audience specialist with decades of experience in digital media and developing new models for public interest news. He currently works at The Conversation, and has previously worked with broadcaster STV, along with a number of other non-profit news projects. He is a founding co-director of Scottish investigative journalism co-operative, The Ferret.

Alex Scales is Evidence & Learning Manager at Westminster Foundation for Democracy, where he supports and manages research and evaluation projects and synthesises evidence across a global programme portfolio. Alex has worked in various international development and UK charity roles, spanning research and evaluation, business development, communications and knowledge management, programming, fundraising and campaigning.

Anna Scott is a content, brand and User Centred Design specialist with a background in data and human rights. She directed content and brand strategy at Open Data Institute, 360Giving and clients across data ethics and civic tech, and cut her teeth as a Guardian journalist. Anna currently designs digital public services as a Senior Content Designer at Defra.

 

Nigel Ball has a record in social change spanning government, social enterprise, and academia. He is currently leading University of the Arts London’s transition to becoming a social purpose-led organisation as the Director of the new Social Purpose Lab. As the first Executive Director of the Government Outcomes Lab at Oxford University, Nigel led academics, civil servants and industry in a cross-sector effort to change the way government partnerships work.

Ravi Gidoomal is a commercial director, business strategy advisor and digital transformation specialist. He leads EDGE Digital Manufacturing, a consultancy which helps organisations to improve their digital readiness and transform their business. Ravi brings multi-disciplinary experience across diverse sectors including financial services, professional services, manufacturing and retail as an investor, management consultant and non-executive director.

Tim Hughes is a specialist in public participation and democratic reform. Currently he is Democracy and Participation Lead for the Open Government Partnership, a multilateral platform of 75 national governments, 160 local governments and thousands of civil society organisations working to embed the principles of transparency, participation, inclusion and accountability in government.

 

As you can see, our new board members bring a highly relevant spread of skills and experience, which we’ll be making the most of as they help us steer mySociety’s direction.

At the same time, it’s a bittersweet moment as we’re saying goodbye and giving heartfelt thanks to Rachel Rank and Tony Burton, who’ve come to the end of their tenure as trustees after eight years. Both Rachel and Tony have been incredible mentors, guides, supporters and critical friends to mySociety throughout their time as trustees – their enthusiasm and input has been so valuable. We wish them all the best.

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Image: Brad Starkey