If you’re trying to get the law changed, it can seem like a monumental task: where on earth do you start? 

One organisation that knows the answer is Access Info Europe: they have a long record of tirelessly working for better rights to information across the continent, and have systematised their approach. This month, their Director Rachel Hanna shared insights with the Access to Information Network, in a legal framework masterclass.

You can watch the video of this session for yourself, or read on for detailed notes.

The benefits of Access to Information

Rachel explained that Access Info are currently running a project to improve the right to information in four countries.

Access to Information (ATI) is a fundamental right, and recognised globally as such — but it doesn’t always work in practice. Countries may have a legal framework, but how it works is often different on paper and in practice. For example, one of the best laws in the world is Afghanistan’s, but it’s worth nothing if it’s not implemented properly. 

When ATI is in place but not functioning as it should, it can be extremely frustrating: it puts people off using it.

Rachel pointed out that the benefits to society of a fully functioning ATI are clear, and to underline this, she cited the important findings of the three finalists of Access Info’s recent Impact awards:

• The Lighthouse Reports uncovered discrimination in algorithms to detect fraud in benefits, based on gender and ethnicity.
• Altreconomia in Italy revealed the use of drugs to keep people calm in repatriation centres. 
• Eleanor Shaikh, who we’ve written about before, used the UK FOI law to help vindicate Sub-Postmasters caught in the post office Horizon scandal.

If ATI is not working does it still have benefits? Access Info carried out a campaign in Malta when a person was told they couldn’t submit an FOI request because they were not residents of Malta. They took the case to court, using pro bono lawyers; the court agreed with them and said that the way the law was being implemented was discriminatory.

They also fought against a law in Montenegro that would have lowered standards.

Groundwork

Rachel described their ATI Network project to equip participants with three strategies:

• Advocacy – the act of persuading or arguing in support of specific clause or policy. The audience here is the general public and policymakers. For example, Access Info published research highlighting gaps and areas of improvement in the implementation of the EU’s ATI.
• Activism – this refers to physically active advocacy: getting out in the street, getting noticed. Here, the audience is public and communities. For example, in India a 40-day sit-in in a small town, demanding the creation of an ATI law, was successful.
• Lobbying – this means persuading decision-makers to take a particular action. The audience is policymakers and lawmakers. For example, in Mexico a multi stakeholder group influenced legislators to pass an ATI Law.

All three tactics can be used in combination. You can work systematically by first building the foundations, then creating visibility and finally converting the mobilisation into law.

They are currently carrying out four national advocacy campaigns with the same initial approach for each country, then tailored activities depending on the specific state of the law, the skills the partner has, and how these can be adapted to the situation in the country. The steps are as follows:

1. First they analyse the national context in which the ATI law is working: what are the strengths and the gaps; is it aligned with international standards? Is it Tromsø convention ratified? If so, has there been a recommendation from the Group of States Against Corruption, GRECO? Are they part of the Open Government Partnership (OGP)? Is there a promise to advance the ATI law under OGP?
   
   All of these factors can be used to hold governments to account. There might also be legislative considerations: for example in Spain, ATI did not fall under the fourth action plan as had been expected, and probably won’t be under the fifth now, either. While the will had been there, but the political context changed, making it very hard to pass laws right now.

As part of this process you should perform some stakeholder mapping: do you have any good allies in the government? Are there civil society organisations, private sector, campaign groups, media that might support the cause? They performed this research and evidence building for each country.

1. They then designed an advocacy plan, deciding what their goals were: would they push for better law, or higher use of the existing law? Better implementation? Making this decision helped them decide what sort of activity would be most effective: advocacy, activism or lobbying.
   You can build a coalition with lawyers, academics, journalists. Craft your message according to who you’re talking to. Always make your message about its recipient: why should they care about it?
2. Finally, you need to anticipate and adapt to challenges. Obstacles might be resistance from stakeholders, your own limited resources or a lack of public interest, to name three. 

National campaigns

Access Info did baseline research on the legal frameworks within each country. They crafted their own methodology that goes a little further than the Tromsø convention itself does, because some areas, like Article 8, don’t go into much detail: this recommends a ‘quick and inexpensive review process’ but doesn’t g into any detail about a body overseeing this and what powers they should have — so Access Info have added what an ideal body would look like and the powers it would have.

After examining all countries that run an Alavateli-based site, they decided to work in four countries, each with different states of legal framework:

The Netherlands adopted a new law in 2022, and not signed or ratified Tromsø. The legislation is strong on paper, but weak in practice. There’s an opportunity in that certain aspects of the law will be under review at certain stages; and they would also like to push them to sign the Tromsø convention.

Access Info partnered with Spoon, and they formed their plan in this context: their goal is to improve implementation and strengthen oversight.

They plan to create guidelines for officials handling requests, alongside with the committee that has oversight over the law. There is a lack of guidance, so Spoon can step in, and Access Info will advise

After five years there will be an evaluation of whether there should be a commissioner, and they will definitely say yes – this is the most popular model for oversight worldwide.

They will also promote the use of Alaveteli at local level, with the aim of influencing those at the national level: they’re not keen because they’re concerned about data protection, especially the issue that the officials’ name are published on the request. So they’re going from the bottom up to show how local government is using it in a way that doesn’t encroach on personal data protection.

You don’t always have to go to the national government:, see where you can have the most impact, which is usually not the ‘top top’ — the middle might be better. By working with the government to create guidelines, making material that will be useful for the five year review, there is a great opportunity for impact.

Moldova has a strong law, but there are concerns: in 2023, an update broadened the scope of exceptions and lengthed the timeframe for responses; and the oversight body is not strong. It has been Tromsø ratified, however.

Specific issues are a low usage of the law, and poor implementation compared to a strong law on paper.

Here, Access Info partnered with Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) who manage the Alaveteli platform for Moldova.

The goal is to bring the law into line with international standards: it’s a new law, but LHR are performing strategic litigation on issues around its implementation. For example, the Evaluation Committee is an independent body which evaluates the integrity of judges and prosecutors: they have ruled that they don’t fall under the ATI law, which is a bad interpretation, so LHR are taking the matter to court.

They’re also litigating against the over-redaction of personal data in court documents.

In Moldova a second goal is to increase use of Alaveteli platform, by highlighting success stories, partnering with journalists to highlight positive outcomes from requests, for example when requests showed that the level of bullying in schools was growing, they were able to get anti-bullying programmes implemented in schools. Other findings have been around gender based violence and malpractice by doctors: basically, “what can’t be measured can’t be improved”.

LHR are providing legal support to requesters whose requests are refused, and fighting against the misinterpretation of the law, in the hope that all these approaches will combat the underuse of ATI in the country.

France has a weak law: they have not signed the Tromsø agreement, and there’s a lack of awareness and implementation from both civil society and journalists.

At this time there is no room for reform of the law, but they will push for signing the Tromsø  convention.

As with Moldova, the main aims are to raise awareness of the law, and increase its use via the Alaveteli platform (Ma Dada). They’ll train French civil society organisations and journalists and create an FOI community to build the foundations for when there’s an opportunity for legal reform. They’ll create a practical guide so that individuals can understand what FOI can do for them.

Greece has a very weak ATI legal regime: there’s no one law that covers everything. Rather, rights are scattered across different laws and it is a very confusing legal framework. When a request has been refused, the appeal needs to be sent to one of a range of different bodies. They are not signed up to the Tromsø agreement.

Here, they have partnered with Vouliwatch at the national level, and are pushing for legal reform, better implementation and public awareness

Their goal is for a new legal framework, and to get Greece Tromsø ratified.

Vouliwatch has already lobbied the parliamentary committee to discuss the amendment of the law. They’re working to build a coalition to push the campaign forward, and have trained civil society organisations and journalists in a workshop. They’ll use this coalition to help them with joint statements, open letters, social media, media articles, et cetera.

General advice

Know your audience It’s about persuasion, advocacy and lobbying. Know who you’re talking to and why they should care. In messaging you can consider three types of argument, using Aristotle’s three types of persuasion:

• Ethos: establish your credibility: why should they listen to you? For example, in the Netherlands, the government weren’t aware of Access InfoEurope, so they worked to create allies in government and got them to introduce them to the person they wanted to talk to.
• Pathos: make your audience care emotionally, for example by storytelling  — showing how ATI can do good in society, and why we need it.
• Logos : make logical arguments supported by facts. “You signed up to Tromsø, but your law is out of line with that”.

Make your arguments valuable to the person you’re speaking to Public officials care about the levels of public trust in government, for example, so that’s a good angle to come in on.

Policy briefs Keep them short. Use short paragraphs of less than 20 words per sentence, and four sentences per paragraph for maximum impact.  

Make your brief persuasive and valuable to the reader: locate problems in their communities and offer the solutions.

Common errors are to include too little evidence or research; and to use too much jargon – keep it simple.

Be adaptable to change Impact can come in different shapes and forms — you might not have realised that what you’re seeing is impact, but for example, journalists getting access to new stories counts as impact.

Be prepared Create networks that will be ready when there are legislative opportunities.

And finally: don’t give up.

Q&A

There were then questions from the audience.

Q: “Building a coalition” sounds great, but difficult. What is the least it can mean? 

Rachel: Being reactive to a specific situation. For example, when the authorities were closing access to beneficial ownership registers, we could use that moment when there was outrage. We could gather different people and organisations who cared about the same issue — even though they were all coming from different angles.

It’s very valuable to bring people in who have completely different angles: they help you to see, and prepare for, what the opposition would say. So for example we have some strong data protection advocates in our ranks, who might argue against disclosure on those grounds. Having this sort of discussion with your allies helps you to get the arguments clear in your head before taking the campaign public.

Q: Could you go into more detail on who was running the campaign and who you communicated to when using public outreach, classic media, social media? Who was in the team for each country and what roles did you have?

Rachel: Vouliwatch are really good at public outreach: so they already knew who to reach out to. On the other hand, in Moldova they haven’t done something like that before, so we are helping them. Basically it depends on the national context.

Q: What heuristics are you using to know where you are? For example, if your aim is to ‘build credibility’, how do you know when you’ve ticked that box and are in a position to take the next step?

Rachel: It’s very difficult. In some places we already have credibility with the national institutions, so for example in Greece Vouliwatch have already had conversations, and feedback says they’ve been taken on board. That sort of thing helps you see that you’re making progress.

Q: Are there things we can do internationally to help national level organisations? Our connections are all in the UK, and they each have their own goals, constraints and focuses.

Rachel: it can be helpful to bring in the  international angle: for example the Council of Europe has an oversight group that looks at the laws of all countries that have ratified Tromsø. Even the fact that they exist at all sends a strong message.

It can be disheartening waiting for the moment to act. Your followers will get fatigued, so be strategic about when and how to use your voice. Channel your energies into activities that could have the most impact.

Q: Is there a regular schedule for updating the country’s policy ratings (the global RTI rankings) or does it depend on when you get the funding to do so?

Rachel: Yes, it is funding-dependent!

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Image: Tromsø by Harry Jaschhof

mySociety wants to help you use FOI in a campaign or advocacy project

mySociety has the capacity to support a limited number of organisations working with marginalised populations in the UK. We’ll help you to make and analyse Freedom of Information (FOI) requests so you can use the data in your campaigning and advocacy. 

Sounds good? Please read on, then fill in this short questionnaire to tell us about your organisation, your project and any timelines you are working to. 

Please note: this offer is only open to organisations, and specifically those working with marginalised groups in the UK*. 

A little context

Last year, mySociety carried out research into the use of FOI to support social change for marginalised communities in the UK. 

That research informed a small number of free training seminars explaining different facets of FOI use. We’re now starting phase two of this project, aiming to provide dedicated support to ten organisations, helping them use FOI in a campaign or advocacy project between January and July 2025. 

What can FOI do for you?

If you’re new to FOI, you should know that it can be used to great effect in campaigning and advocacy, from gathering data to prove the need for your work, to uncovering corruption or maladministration. To find out more, browse our case studies or watch the seminars from phase one: 

During this project we’ll set you up on WhatDoTheyKnow Pro (if you don’t already have an account); we’ll give you advice and support on framing your FOI request, who to send it to, how to respond to requests for clarification or rejections, and if necessary, how to submit something for internal review.

For large-scale FOI investigations where you’d like to collaborate with other members of staff, we can also show you how to use our Projects software, which makes it super-easy to work as a team and extract datasets from FOI.

What will you get out of this?

Once the data starts coming in from your FOI requests, we’ll help you load them into our Projects tool so you can decide how best to analyse the data with your team.  You’ll end up with a spreadsheet from which you can draw conclusions to help shape your campaign or advocacy work. 

You’ll be working in a small cohort of 2-5 organisations, and we’ll keep you together as a group so you can share common problems and we can also see where each organisation might hit different hurdles.

There’s no charge for this service: all we’re asking is for you to attend calls with mySociety/your cohort to feed back to us how things are going, tell us what your pain points are and ask us lots and lots of questions about FOI! We’ll also want to write or record a case study about you for our reporting and communications teams. 

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* What is a marginalised community? For the purposes of this project, this refers to any group campaigning or advocating in the UK with or for:

• People who are disadvantaged by their social and/or economic background or circumstances
• People with Black, Asian or other Minority Ethnic heritage
• People living with disabilities and chronic illness 
• And, within these groups, particularly those with low digital literacy.

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Image: Christina @ wocintechchat.com

All at mySociety were deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Helen Darbishire. We have lost a valued partner, a fellow advocate for transparency and a friend.

We were fortunate enough to work alongside Helen for many years in her role as founder and Executive Director of Access Info Europe, in which she both campaigned passionately for the right to information, and oversaw the launch of AskTheEU, an Alaveteli site enabling citizens to submit FOI requests to EU institutions.

Helen was an invaluable contributor to our AlaveteliCon events, always happy to share her deep knowledge and experience around Access to Information, and to argue the case for better, stronger transparency. mySociety team members variously describe her as ‘a force of nature’; adding ‘once met, never forgotten’, and highlighting that despite her passionate dedication to the right to information, she was also ‘never boring — great fun to spend time with socially’.

We all — but especially those within the Alaveteli community — will feel her loss; but her legacy is a strong one, and we have confidence in the AccessInfo team’s ability to uphold it.

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Images: Banner – Helen at AlaveteliCon in Oslo, 2019

Photo – The Alaveteli community in Madrid, where Helen helped us host AlaveteliCon in 2015.

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: Diliff (CC by/3.0)

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