If you’ve been holding off from booking your place at TICTeC until the full schedule is announced, this is your sign to act!

You can now see all the sessions, together with info on who’ll be presenting and what they’ll be talking about on the TICTeC 2025 page.

We’ve already introduced our amazing keynotes, Fernanda Campagnucci and Marietje Schaake. Now you can enjoy looking through the rest of the two days’ offerings, with a global spread of speakers from US, Nigeria, Hungary, Germany, Lithuania, Thailand and many, many more, representing organisations including  MIT GOV/LAB; Global Data Barometer, OpenUp South Africa, Manchester City Council, Delib, Code for Pakistan, Polis, Mzalendo Trust, Google, Tainan Sprout… and lots more.

Responding to our theme of pro-democracy technology, sessions cover topics as diverse as: tech for better elections; AI-powered deliberation; tracking climate finance to curb corruption; measuring the impact of Access to Information, and much, much more.

The world is going through ‘interesting times’ just now. TICTeC is all the more important in the face of these multiple threats, as we get together, forge new alliances and learn from one another. We’ll return home stronger, with new knowledge about the myriad ways in which civic tech can help us to preserve and further democracy.

Book your tickets for TICTeC 2025 now.

The Council Climate Action Scorecards were recently mentioned in East Sussex County Council’s Written Questions (see question 12, on the council’s score for mitigation and adaptation). When we spot that the Scorecards are helping to inform councils’ conversations like this, we often make contact to find out more.

East Sussex were happy to fill us in with more details of how the Scorecards have helped them, and how they’ve been able to feed into the process with their own experiences:

“For local authorities, climate change is an evolving area of work with few statutory responsibilities. As a result, we can struggle to see what ‘good’ looks like, both for individual areas of work and holistically across the council. We’ve therefore found the Climate Action Scorecards useful to help identify areas where we’re doing well and those where we may need to pay more attention. The results of the Scorecards have been briefed to senior officers and elected members.

“Officers have also used the Scorecards as a research tool. When we review an area of work (or our Climate Emergency Strategy as a whole), one of the first questions we ask is what other local authorities are doing. The Scorecards provide an easy way to identify leaders in particular fields for further investigation.

“Finally, the marking process behind the Scorecards has encouraged us to look at our website and the information it provides on our climate change work. As a result, we’ve made changes to place important information front and centre and make the climate change pages easier to navigate.

“Climate Emergency UK have taken an inclusive approach to the Scorecards, and we’ve appreciated the opportunity to attend briefings and feedback on scoring through the right to reply. Through this, we’ve explained some of the issues faced by largely rural authorities such as East Sussex, for example in areas such as public transport.

“We’re pleased to see some of that feedback taken onboard in the latest round of scoring. We hope the CE UK will continue to evolve the scoring criteria to make the exercise even more useful for both local authorities and the public we serve.”

Thanks very much to East Sussex for giving us the view from a County Council. Scorecards are a joint project between Climate Emergency UK and mySociety.

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Image: Neil Mark Thomas

The Council Climate Action Scorecards project, which assesses local councils on their climate action, is only possible thanks to a large number of people who give up their time to volunteer. Their job is to source and analyse data from a variety of places, analysing more than 40 different possible pieces of climate action that councils should be taking on their path to Net Zero. 

It’s very worthwhile work, and the project has tangible results (just see our previous case studies) — which is obviously a great motivator for volunteers to get involved. But going through the process of training, and then the actual marking, has other benefits too: it adds to their knowledge, giving them a new, comprehensive overview of the climate sector and its many component parts.

We spoke to Scarlette, who volunteered as part of the 2025 cohort. Scarlette told us how she got involved, and how it took her down a new avenue.

“I’d been looking for a job in the environment sector following my Masters,” explains Scarlette, “and since this had been a long and slow process, I decided to look for volunteer opportunities to do alongside my temporary job. 

“I came across the advert for the Scorecards and felt it really aligned with my interests, particularly in the area of transport.”

While helping to assess councils’ action on transport, Scarlette came across a novel concept. Question 2.3 in the Scorecards asks “Does the council have enforced school streets across its area?”, with points awarded to councils with more than ten such streets year round, and bonus marks available for those with more than 30.

A school street is a road outside a school that is effectively closed to motorised traffic at drop-off and pick-up times. As the School Streets website notes, such schemes help tackle air pollution and road danger, encourage a healthier lifestyle and active travel to school for families, and lead to a better environment for everyone.

Once Scarlette found out about them, she was keen to get involved:

“I started volunteering as a School Street Marshal at a local school for a six month trial period. Prior to volunteering on the Scorecards I had never heard of the School Street initiative, and certainly wasn’t aware of any near me. The Scorecards led me to seek out this new role, and has encouraged me to get involved further with local campaigns.

“Volunteering with the Scorecards and the School Streets initiative has further cemented my passion for working in the environmental sector. I’ve been able to build on my academic knowledge within environmental law and have had the opportunity to gain more experience working in my local community with an environmental charity. I continue to look for further volunteering opportunities elsewhere to build on these experiences.”

We’re really glad to hear this, and wish Scarlette all the best in finding a permanent role in the environment sector: it certainly sounds like she’s acquiring some really relevant experience.

Scorecards are a joint project from Climate Emergency UK and mySociety.

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Image: Hammersmith and Fulham Council (CC by-nc-nd/2.0)

Has your local authority declared a Nature Emergency? – Find out with a new service from the Woodland Trust, Climate Emergency UK, and mySociety!

The UK nations are among the most nature-depleted in the world. But there’s hope! Just as we’ve found with climate action, the UK’s local authorities hold the power to drive the change that our natural environment urgently needs. And that starts with declaring a Nature Emergency which commits the council to act.

So today we’re excited to launch Nature Emergency UK. This new website brings together the latest crowdsourced data on which UK local authorities have declared a nature emergency, alongside three metrics of the ambition of those declarations, plus case studies and model motions from the Woodland Trust, to help local councillors and local authority officers push for better.

For each local authority in the UK, our long-time collaborators Climate Emergency UK collected not only the exact wording and date of the council’s nature emergency declaration, but also the presence of three priority actions identified by the Woodland Trust, that mark out the councils with the most ambitious plans for nature recovery:

On top of that rigorous database, we’ve built a clean and simple interface that lets you quickly find your own council’s information, compare it with similar councils elsewhere in the UK, or look for patterns in nature emergency response amongst councils of the same type, population, and more.

Our Climate Programme lead, Zarino Zappia notes: “Through our work on both the Council Climate Scorecards and the Local Intelligence Hub, we’ve seen first-hand how important nature and biodiversity are as issues for local communities around the UK. We hope this new website will help citizens and community groups have informed discussions with their local representatives about the pace of action to restore nature near them, and then help those local councillors and council officers to discover and share best practice, in response to that democratic voice.”

If you’d like to see whether your local authority has a plan to restore nature in your area, check them out on Nature Emergency UK!

To rebuild public trust in our political system we need better data, stronger checks, tighter rules and ultimately, systematic reform.

Over the last few months, 50 volunteers helped the TheyWorkForYou team go through the Register of Members’ Financial Interests (RMFI), line by line, for all 650 MPs. We were looking for specific bits of information, but also to more generally understand the state of the Register and how rules on transparency are working in practice. 

• Read the report here
• Join us for the launch event at 1pm today

We have many ideas on how to improve that transparency, but the goal is not ‘just’ good documentation of office holders’ conflicts of interest: rather, the minimisation and elimination of those interests in the first place. To better align politicians’ behaviour with public expectations, there is no substitute for a stricter set of rules around MPs’ financial interests. 

As such, we are making four categories of recommendations, stepping from incremental change to improve data collection, to systemic reform of the funding landscape. 

1. Better data collection to achieve more accurate interests information
2. Stronger checks to make sure the interests information is reliable
3. Tighter rules so there are fewer unacceptable interests in the first place
4. Systematic reform to decrease the role of money in the political system.

As part of this project we have also added two new features to TheyWorkForYou:

• Election registers – adding more details and summaries to disclosures made after the last election.
• Highlighted interests – bringing together interests related to industries with low public support and governments of not free countries and offering MPs opportunity for additional context.

Over the next few months, we will release follow-on work from this project, including adding Registers of Interests for the devolved parliaments to TheyWorkForYou, releasing more information on APPGs, and a blog series on conflicts of interest declared in Parliament. 

For now, do read the report. We’ll also be discussing our findings with Chris Cook of the Financial Times and Rose Whiffen from Transparency International today at 1pm: reserve your spot here.

We spoke to Martin O’Brien at Lewisham Council about the Climate Council Action Scorecards, and the ways in which he’s used them to support his role as Head of Climate Resilience.

The Scorecards assess all UK councils across a large variety of different climate actions, publishing the final marks online, for both councils and the public to see.

So, how do all these numbers actually help a council in their work towards Net Zero? Martin told us that there are three distinct ways in which they’re useful.

“Firstly, I use them to build a sense of what’s going on around climate action, across all local authorities. They help me identify areas where we have gaps in our own action, and the places where we might pick up useful insight, tools and advice from other councils.

“Then they’re also useful for our engagement across the council’s service teams, to spell out and reinforce the connections between what they do and our ambitions on climate action.

“And then finally, they help with our communication and engagement with residents, particularly local activist and environmental groups. They encourage a conversation that acknowledges we can’t do everything, that there are some areas where we are taking meaningful action — but also, areas where we are keen to learn, to expand and improve how we work and what we can achieve.”

Can Martin put any measures to the impact the Scorecards have had for Lewisham?

“It’s hard to translate the benefits into hard facts and figures, but I feel that they’ve given us, as a council, confidence and pride in some of the things we have achieved. They’ve shown that while the scale of the challenge might sometimes feel overwhelming, it’s possible to break it down into achievable steps.

“I don’t always agree with the scoring.  If I’m honest there are times I’m surprised we get a mark (I won’t tell you which ones) and there are other times I’m outraged we don’t (happy to share information about this).  But more often than not when I look at the methodology and the assessments, I can see there’s a potential opportunity to reshape the way we do things for the better.”

Thanks very much to Martin for sharing these insights — it’s always helpful for us to understand exactly how the Scorecards are proving useful. The Climate Council Action Scorecards are a joint project between Climate Emergency UK and mySociety.

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Image: Robin Inkysloth cc by-nc-nd/2.0

We are glad to say that TICTeC (The Impacts of Civic Technology conference) will be going ahead as planned, in Mechelen Belgium and online, on June 10-11.

So, if you were holding off on reserving your place, booking accommodation or travel, you can now do so with confidence — and we very much look forward to seeing you in June.

What happened?

Part of the funding for TICTeC was provided by NED, the National Endowment for Democracy. Unfortunately, NED has been affected by the Trump administration’s federal funding freeze, and so can no longer commit to providing the funds that they had pledged. 

However, we have now secured alternative funding to fill that gap.

We’re aware the US funding freeze also affects some of our potential attendees. The event was always going to be both online and in person, and we will be working over the coming months to make sure that we bring together a diverse range of projects and approaches from around the world to share and shape what happens next in pro-democratic tech. We’ll be sharing more about how we want to use TICTeC to provide a forum to respond to the urgency of the current moment. 

What’s happening at TICTeC?

We’re excited to have two amazing keynote speakers: Fernanda Campagnucci and Marietje Schaake, both of whom have really pertinent insights and experience that will ignite the two days of conversation at TICTeC.

The full schedule will be published soon, but you can be sure that it will be as full as ever of presentations that are relevant to the present moment for the civic tech community. Meanwhile, if you book your ticket before 3 March 17 March (we’ve extended the period in recognition of this period of uncertainty), you can secure them at early bird prices.

The keynote speakers set the tone for TICTeC each year, kicking off the conference with a timely provocation that seeds ideas through the sessions that follow, and informs new channels of discussion.

Our first keynote announcement for TICTeC 2025 is Fernanda Campagnucci, Executive Director of InternetLab, who brings unparalleled expertise in transparency, digital transformation, and civic engagement. Fernanda will explore what is made possible by new forms of technology — especially in the anti-corruption space — and what needs to happen to make those possibilities a reality.

With TICTeC’s emphasis on pro-democracy technology this year, Fernanda’s knowledge and experience is sure to spark two days of informed insights.

Fernanda’s diverse career spans a number of roles — and continents — but has been guided by a commitment to reshaping public governance and leveraging technology for positive change.

From 2019-24 she was Executive Director of Open Knowledge Brasil, enhancing its impact on public policy. Prior to this she was a public manager at Sao Paulo City Hall, championing policies centered on transparency, digital transformation, and civic technologies, fundamentally reshaping the way government interacts with its citizens. 

Her role as the Head of Integrity at the Comptroller General’s Office further deepened her understanding of ethical governance; and at the Department of Education, she led the flagship Open Government Initiative ‘Patio Digital’.

Meanwhile, Fernanda’s academic achievements have complemented her practical experience, with a first degree in Journalism followed by a Masters in Education and a PhD in Public Administration: she’s also acted as a lecturer on Compliance and Public Innovation.

All of these roles will inform Fernanda’s keynote, so we hope you’ll be in the room — or joining us via Zoom — when she steps up to the podium. Here’s where to reserve your place (and if you act before March 3, you’ll pay earlybird pricing).

Cambridge City Council was the second highest scoring district council in the UK on the Council Climate Action Scorecards, a joint project between mySociety and Climate Emergency UK (CE UK).

Given their success, Climate Change Officer at Cambridge Janet Fogg was keen to tell us how they’ve been using the Scorecards since they were launched. She and CE UK’s Annie spoke over Zoom. 

“I came across the project thanks to CEUK letting us know via email about the Scorecards and the Right of Reply back in 2022. We took part in the Right of Reply that year, before the final Scorecards results came out. 

“I used the 2023 Scorecards in the most recent committee report on our climate action.

With the score that we got, we were keen to let people know about it! Receiving this high score helped us show to people that when we say we are doing everything we can, it’s backed up by evidence: the Scorecard results. 

“Sometimes we get criticism that we don’t talk enough about what we are doing on our climate action, and these Scorecards are a way for us to show what work we are doing, and in an easy way for residents to see and understand, too.”

Janet went on to explain how the Action Scorecards are a useful tool within the council when working with other departments. 

“Having the specific actions laid out in the Scorecards helps me justify and put forward a stronger case that these actions are good to do.They’re not just actions that I think we as a council should do, but best practice, and I can point to other councils that are doing these things. And it’s not just a list, we are all also being measured on whether we do these actions, via the Scorecards, so it’s important we really do implement them. 

“A lot of my work is about dealing with change and change is difficult. Having the Scorecards helps us lay out clearly which actions we want to be doing and the benefit of doing so.”

The Council Climate Action Scorecards results are public for everyone to see. Janet told us how this is one of their most useful benefits.

“Having an external organisation like CE UK giving us feedback on our work is helpful. And I’m happy that it’s not a hidden assessment, it’s really clear for us to see where we got marks and where we didn’t, and see also where other councils scored or not too. 

“The Action Scorecards questions help shape our future work plans. The questions set out what needs doing and we shape our work around this.” 

Cambridge City Council also responded to the latest Right of Reply, ahead of the 2025 Action Scorecards. But they are aware of where improvements can still be made. “As a council we have high ambition but are constrained in some areas such as still being in the process of updating our Local Plan”. 

Thanks to Janet for taking the time to talk to us!

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Image: John Sutton (cc by/sa-2.0)

Kelly Murphy is the Climate Change Officer at Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council, a local authority in Hertfordshire that oversees a mix of urban, suburban, and rural areas.

As Kelly explained, Welwyn Hatfield works collaboratively with nine other authorities within the Hertfordshire Climate Change and Sustainability Partnership (along with County Council and Hertfordshire Futures), where they share information and work collectively to broaden the impact of their Net Zero and sustainability projects. We were keen to hear what part the Council Climate Action Scorecards have played within Welwyn Hatfield.

Kelly explained that, for Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council, one big advantage has been the ability to learn from other authorities: 

“We’ve used the Scorecards to understand what areas we need to improve in, and to research what ‘good’ looks like”, she says. “The transparent scoring meant we could identify local authorities across the UK that had performed highly in specific sections, then research what aspects they were doing well on, and how they were doing it.”

And how does that kind of research translate into action? Kelly gave a perfect example: 

“One section where we could see that we needed to develop our approach was Collaboration and Engagement. Having a climate agenda and taking action is obviously of great importance, but we needed to ensure that they were also being communicated throughout the borough so that residents understood exactly what the council is doing.  

“After researching other local authorities that performed well in this section, and incorporating feedback from a resident survey we conducted, we looked at what was within our budget and officer capacity. 

“We decided the best way to engage with residents, community groups and businesses was the creation of our Welwyn Hatfield Climate Hub, a dedicated space on the One Welwyn Hatfield community website. It’s a single source for everything climate-related in the borough, with progress updates, news, links to relevant reports and policies, educational resources, funding information, notification of relevant events and competitions, a list of community eco groups and so on.”

That sounds like a real step up, and a great response to learning that improvements needed to be made in this area.

Compiling the Scorecards is a significant effort, managed by Climate Emergency UK with trained-up volunteers. But equally, they wouldn’t be possible without buy-in from the councils themselves, who are invited to respond to their marks before the Scorecards go live. We asked Kelly what the council’s experience had been of this process.

“It’s actually been very useful,” she says. “For instance, during the right of reply period, I noted that we had not scored on a number of questions. I knew that marking depends on having publicly available evidence, and when I looked for it I discovered that, in some cases, the information was quite tricky to find. 

“A new sustainable procurement appendix, for example, had been recently added to our procurement and commercial strategy 2021-2025, but unless you knew it was there, you might not scroll all the way down through that document. 

“As a result, I updated the Climate Hub, with a new section specifically on sustainable procurement, including a link to take readers directly to the strategy and ultimately improving accessibility to this information.”

Another benefit was also provided regarding funding, Kelly explains “Climate awareness/literacy training has featured in the Scorecards for the last few years. The fact we had not scored in this area, along with a number of other persuasive reasons, was presented in a report to senior leaders and councillors to request draw down of money from the climate reserves to fund this training.

“Having agreed that providing climate awareness training was a crucial step in supporting, enabling and empowering individuals to take climate action, we collaborated with a private company to offer staff, councillors and our residents bespoke climate awareness training. We are excited to launch this training at the end of the month and look forward to hearing about the positive impacts the training has had both internally within the organisation and externally around the borough.”

It’s wonderful to hear of the tangible results the Scorecards have helped to bring about, thanks to Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council’s positive and proactive attitude. 

Kelly says as we conclude our conversation, “You can’t compare councils like for like — they have different demographics, governance structures, administration, budgets, officer capacity, and so on — so it might have been easy to dismiss the Scorecards. But it’s not a competition, and the Scorecards don’t try to make it one. We’ve embraced the process because climate change has no borders.”

“Ultimately, a platform that flags areas for improvement and signposts to best practice should only been seen positively. It enables us all to move in the same direction towards the same goal.”

We heartily agree! Thanks very much to Kelly for sharing her experiences.

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Image by Jim Osley CC by-sa/2.0.