Ok, doing these regularly fell apart at *about* when the election happened – but let’s get back on track!

WhoFundsThem

On the WhoFundsThem work, last week we inducted the 50 volunteers who are going to answer 32 questions for 650 MPs. We’re using the crowdsourcing software we developed for the Council Climate Scorecards with CE UK (and taking big inspiration from their general approach). We’ve also released the underlying research we’ve based the questions on. 

It’s been really exciting to meet the volunteers, and getting to grips with the fine detail of what’s in the registers. This is the reason we wanted this to be a volunteer project, because while you can get good aggregate stories through data analysis, to get good analysis on an individual level, you really have to go through it by hand. 

Over the next six weeks we’ll be going through that process, then reviewing the results and making a right of reply available to MPs, before a launch in the new year.  

On our “ask the APPGs for the information they have to give out on request” project. We’ve made our first information request to the APPGs, getting some resistance here (eg APPGs who say all the information is on the website when it’s not) but waiting to see what we get back by the deadline later in the week. Depending on the level of disclosure, we might stagger the questions we ask to balance “the rules say you should know this and make it public” with “in practice, awareness is low and these are run by small organisations”. But we’ll see what happens. 

One of the things we’ve started to pay more attention to is written questions, given reasonable suspicion that there has been some cash for questions happening. There’s something odd in that Parliament seems to ask what the conflict of interest might be, but doesn’t publish it (just says it exists). We’ve got an FOI request in to see if there’s some more information we can get Parliament to publish (or flush out what’s happening in the processes there). 

Julia’s been down the rabbit hole of trying to understand the different donation disclosure systems (visiting her local council to see what the disclosures look like there). We think there’s some under-disclosure nationally, so we’re checking in on ways we can validate that. 

Across these areas, there’s basically a set of things where there are “rules” that exist, but in practice no one is actually monitoring them to enforce  — and we might get some improvement just by paying attention and trying to kick other processes into motion. Along these lines we’ve got an experimental machine learning approach going, to feed possible “conflict of interest” disclosures in debates to our volunteers, but we’re also thinking about doing a weekly blog post about the number and quality of disclosures that week (there’s in general something interesting about how MPs rhetorically use ‘I declare an interest’ to speak to personal experience). 

Previously: 

The new Register of Members Financial Interests is out and we have thoughts (and spreadsheets) / mySociety

New register of interests spreadsheet – with much richer data / mySociety 

Monitoring and voting updates

The stars (and funding) have aligned to get Struan to spend a month on a range of TheyWorkForYou updates we’ve had planned. The key work here is to improve TheyWorkForYou as a political monitoring platform.

One of TheyWorkForYou’s most impactful features is the email alerts – we’re going to make it much easier to manage ‘keyword’ alerts (for people interested in topics rather than people). 

Alongside just making it easier to manage, we’re planning to use the same approach we used in CAPE, to help people search for the right things by offering related search terms (based on a vector analysis of the TheyWorkForYou corpus). 

Something that came out of our previous research was how helpful it was that TheyWorkForYou converts written answers into email alerts. We want to do the same for devolved Parliaments by adding three new scrapers for written questions, so that all answers published are searchable and alertable through the same platform, giving a common toolkit to organisations working across the UK. 

A new coat of paint

Lucas has refreshed the TheyWorkForYou homepages and made a suite of colour changes for better accessibility throughout the site. 

In general, on TheyWorkForYou we’re trying to pick off design improvements as we go through related projects. On the MP profile pages we’re gradually moving elements out of one long page and into their own pages with supporting content. This also, in the long run, will help a bit with the display of people who are in multiple parliaments at the same time (or who move between them). 

Machine learning

We’ve been doing a big set of experiments exploring how vector searches (which use some of the more basic bits of large language models) might fit into our future plans. 

In general, I’m much more comfortable with uses of machine learning that are enabling better search or discovery rather than summarisation at this point. Obviously there’s some good proof of concepts already out there in terms of summarising debates — we just feel there’s a big space to use these new tools to speed up old approaches (improved linking to glossaries rather than creating glossaries, for example) without getting too into generated content. 

TICTeC

As part of our community of practice around Parliamentary Monitoring Sites we had a good session on subnational PMOs with some organisations focused on municipalities. I’ve got a longer write-up coming from this because I think it’s a related but different problem to parliamentary monitoring where we need a slightly different toolkit. 

What else are we doing

The answer to this question is usually “applying for grants”.  We’ve put together a good set of ideas over the summer – and if we get them or not I’ll do some more public write-ups of what we think the direction of travel is. 

But for a quick taste, we’ve got pitches around:

• A big revisit of WriteToThem – and how we pivot that into solving some of the big democratic problems of the current moment (getting the right message to the right place in a layered democracy). 
• Getting good at public education through TheyWorkForYou — we have the potential to add a lot of value beyond just republishing debate transcripts, but need to redevelop the annotation and glossary tools from earlier in the site’s history for the modern era.
• Making Parliament work better — there remains very basic “this data is in a PDF and doesn’t have to be” work to be done, that can improve not just outside understanding of the process, but provide more tools to people working inside Parliament. 
• Better digital tools and transparency for citizens’ assemblies  — how do we take the same “improve transparency/improve efficiency” philosophy and apply it to deliberative approaches?

Less developed, but in the works:

• House of Lords: not going anywhere anytime soon  — but is also unpopular. We want to get better at presenting how it works and applying pressure to perform well, while contributing to the picture of evidence for reform. Some tools we have for the Commons can move across well to the Lords (eg registers of interest), but what special approaches do we need for this large appointed house?
• Mayoral scrutiny: there’s wide acknowledgement of a big scrutiny gap here. We have some ideas on how best to support this – but also an awareness that the tools of TheyWorkForYou aren’t quite right to deal with what is less “one institution”, but one among many in area governance. 

I am once again…

As ever, if you’ve read this far, and you’re not a monthly donor to mySociety,  would you consider becoming one? There is even an anonymous form on that page to tell us why you don’t want to, which is always helpful for us to understand more about. 

Related, but if you are someone (or know someone) with lots of money  — we have really clear plans of how we’d make use of it in a wide range of areas!

One of the reasons we do this work is because we don’t think there’s a more efficient way of improving UK politics/democracy than making TheyWorkForYou (and friends) better. Obviously it’s our job to make that case well, and I’m always happy to hear from people.

Header image: Photo by Marko Blažević on Unsplash

This post was originally published by UKAuthority as an industry voice feature. 

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Open standards underpin many of the digital services we use on a daily basis and are recommended by the government as a way to reduce the overall cost of a service – so why aren’t they used as standard when it comes to local government fault reporting?

As channels of communication continue to diversify, local authorities face a choice. They can shepherd reports of civic problems like potholes and fly-tipping from a vast array of different digital sources, or close off routes to engagement and restrict how members of the public can contact them.

From a form on the authority’s own website, to social media, to third party services, people have come to expect to be able to choose a method of contact that works best for them.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, there is often a complex web of different systems in operation, each pointing in different directions, and covering different service areas.

So how can local government as a whole balance the need to embrace modern citizen expectations for engagement with the need to respond to civic service requests in an efficient and cost effective manner?

The answer is easy: don’t turn your back on open standards.

Why are open standards essential to local government?

Open standards remove barriers to communication between civic services and systems. They enable you to provide the flexibility of choice that members of the public expect without sacrificing resources or getting locked into contracts with suppliers.

There is nothing new about open standards. Open311, for example, a free, international open technology for the reporting of public realm problems originally developed in the USA, has been enabling interoperability between civic services for 15 years. 

Open standards have also been responsible for some of our most well-used transformation programmes. The government’s 2018 Open Standards principles policy paper highlights their many benefits, from avoiding vendor lock-in, to being able to reuse components of software built by others and reducing the overall cost of a service or programme.

An open standard is a way of communicating, that anyone can implement, without paying any money for permission to use the technology. The good thing about open standards is that once several technology systems start using the same ones, different systems from different manufacturers can talk to each other.

When you phone someone else’s telephone, you are using an open standard – this means you don’t have to have the same brand of phone as the person at the other end.

What this means for a government is that if you can make your database of fault reports speak to the outside world, then you don’t have to worry if reports are coming from two, ten or a thousand different websites or apps. You run one system and it copes with all of them. 

Local government call centres don’t worry about what telephone network people are phoning from, or what brand of phone they are using, so why should your digital systems be inflexible?

Standardising interoperability

As a civic technology charity, we at mySociety have been advocating for interoperable, open source civic services for two decades. Among the services we run is FixMyStreet – a third party service that citizens love using to report local problems.

Modern local authority websites have come a long way since the days when FixMyStreet first launched in 2007. Created in response to many authorities not offering an easy to use digital reporting service (if they offered one at all), FixMyStreet enabled members of the public to go online to report a problem that needed fixing in their community without any prior knowledge of council boundaries or responsibilities. It then emailed a report, including all routine information required for responding to a problem, to the best available contact address at the authority.

A few years later in 2011, we established an Open311 API for FixMyStreet to enable local authorities to receive reports from FixMyStreet directly into their backend system(s). The Open311 API also provided authorities with the ability to update report-makers and tell them when work is completed. 

Councils across the UK and abroad have used this Open311 API to connect FixMyStreet to their own systems, receiving reports to the right place in the right system, transparently displaying existing problems on the map and keeping anyone interested in the outcome of problems updated.

Open standards are everywhere, so why not in fault reporting?

Despite being a free, accessible and equitable option, open standards like Open311 are still relatively unknown and underused within local government. As the public and private sector work more closely together, an increase in the procurement of proprietary, closed systems risks the decline of interoperability in civic fault reporting processes, among other services. 

At mySociety, we see open standards like Open311 as a solid foundation for building local government services. After all, many of the digital services we use every day are built upon open standards and APIs, from email to emoji, from public transport journey planning to the protection of your online payments. 

Open standards offer an ever more important level of transparency, allowing everyone to see how they work and providing trust in exactly what data is being sent and received. 

We’re not alone in this thinking; scaling the use of open standards is also being explored by The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) Digital (previously DLUHC). 

When it comes to civic fault reporting, we believe that a joined-up, open system is the best approach, with everyone working together to remove barriers to successful engagement for citizens. 

Whether it’s FixMyStreet or another third party service, where open standard principles are in place, local authorities should feel confident in leaving the door open to such channels of communication without worrying about compromising on efficiency or resources

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By default, FixMyStreet still sends reports by email, and we understand why this can be inconvenient. 

Routing FixMyStreet reports directly into backend systems via Open311 is still (and will always be) free, and requires minimal up-front support to set up. Councils can find all of the information needed about the FixMyStreet Open311 API on the FixMyStreet website, or contact support@fixmystreet.com for help from the FixMyStreet team.

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Image: Liviu Florescu

There’s a lot in the news right now about the Register of MPs’ financial interests, where MPs are supposed to declare all extra income and donations they receive.

For years TheyWorkForYou has republished the register and made it easier to see changes over time. But there’s a lot more that can be done to improve this information and get a better understanding of the influence of money in politics.

Our WhoFundsThem project is going to do the digging into this information — creating summaries and publishing what we find in a clear and accessible way on MPs’ individual profiles on TheyWorkForYou. 

The three key questions for us are:

• Is everything being declared?
• Is what’s being declared clearly understandable?
• And, is what’s being declared acceptable to the public?

To answer this we’ve made a set of 32 questions we want to answer for each MP: we’ll be pulling on the Register, Companies House, MPs’ websites and parliamentary debates.

Our team of volunteers will be working together to answer these over the next few months — giving us new information to share with the public on TheyWorkForYou. 

If you think this work is important and politics should be more transparent, then we would love your help — can you donate today?

DONATE FOR A TRANSPARENT DEMOCRACY

Thank you for your support!

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Image: Thomas Kelley

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

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

Welcome to autumn, and as we have breezed past Right To Know day let’s take a look at what the Access to Information network have been up to this month.

FragDenStaat: released their most recent “redaction art” for Right to Know day on September 28th 2024, this piece comes from Saxony – an area which only ratified their access to information law in 2023, the last of the federal states to do so. 

mySociety: has been experimenting with AI in our Projects data analysis service, with mixed results, and kicking off our new round of support for marginalised groups in the UK. We’re also busy designing some exciting learning opportunities coming in October and November 2024!

Access Info: have a winner for their inaugural Impact Award! Lighthouse Reports won with their brilliant Suspicion Machines investigation and their leadership of the collaboration around this work. The other finalists were really strong contenders and worth checking out too!

SPOON: announced their collaboration with Access Info and their intent to work on important topics such as introducing Information Commissioners to the Netherlands system. 

Sieć Obywatelska Watchdog Polska: On September 28-29, the 3rd Openness Fans’ Convention took place. 110 people from all over Poland took part in the two-day meeting. There were meetings with journalists, talks about technology, legal advice and a presentation of monitoring results conducted by graduates of the Watchdog School. On the evening of September 28, we also raised a toast to openness and FOI.

Ma Dada: Ma Dada held its General Assembly and welcomed new board members from a variety of backgrounds. We also ran training sessions for journalists and kept digging through data for our observatory.

ForSet: had a fantastic Datafest, and are now taking a well deserved breather to take stock and share insights.

Transparencia: After the belgian elections in june, we made lobbying towards the new regional government for stronger FOI regulation in walloon region

ImamoPravoZnati: Gong held its second annual School for Democracy for young politicians and activists. The programme covered a range of civic literacy topics, including new forms of democratic participation and digital tools which can be used for conducting public oversight (such as IPZ).

KiMitTud: have been investigating topics such as Lithium mining in Serbia and oversights in safety zones near factories in Göd. They’re also looking for developer support for 10 hours per month – so if you’re a Ruby whizz and want to support another partner in the network drop us a line!

Vouliwatch/Arthro5A: In view of the government’s initiative to update article 5 of the Code of Administrative Procedure (regarding the right to access to public documents), Vouliwatch submitted a set of proposals during the public consultation process. The proposals submitted aimed at aligning the provisions of the article in question with the standards set by the Tromso Convention. In addition, Vouliwatch proceeded to contact MPs to inform them about its submission and ask for their support during the debate in parliament.

PPDC: We held the Freedom of Information (FOI) Ranking 2024, where we celebrated the strides made in promoting transparency and accountability in governance. This annual event showcases the achievements of public institutions in upholding the principles of openness and citizen participation.

Abrimos Info: has published “Millions of requests: the evolution of the massive use of access to information and the role of INAI”, a data analysis of the impact that the creation of the National Institute of Transparency, Access to Information and Protection of Personal Data (INAI) and the entire National Transparency System had on the right of access to information in Mexico. This op-ed is especially relevant given the possibility of reform or disappearance of these institutions. Read here (spanish)

CITAD: CITAD held its fifth Annual Kano Social Influencers Summit (KANSIS24) with the theme ‘Artificial Intelligence in Election and Governance’ which was attended by over 1000 people.

Other news: 

We’ve created a directory of the partners in this Community of Practice in the Civic Tech Field Guide. You can view it here. 

If you’d like to add your organisation or project, add a free contact form to your listing, or make any changes, please write to matt@civictech.guide.

Photo by Alexandre Chambon on Unsplash

In our new WhoFundsThem project we are making summaries of MPs registers of financial interests to add to TheyWorkForYou. We want to take these existing disclosures and add context to make them easier to understand. To do this, we are taking a hard look at how all the existing disclosure processes work (and when they don’t) to understand how we might best apply pressure for improvements. 

One of our motivations here is that we think the rules about what MPs can and can’t do should be led by public expectations. To reflect that in our work, we’ve put together a literature review of the current picture of evidence around how MPs’ financial interests operate, and how these are perceived.

We’ve published this review online, but here are some quick thoughts I’ve taken away from this. 

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There’s been a big shift in the role of MPs from 40 years ago – in practice and in public perception, being an MP is a full time job. There is some nuance here in public perception: while some professions are more approved in general (doctors/nurses), generally as the pay or involvement goes up, the work is considered less favourably. 

There’s too much focus on the problem of second jobs being a distraction for the MP, and not enough on the problem of privileged access to Parliament for those who can pay for it. We should be asking questions about when MPs are selling their access rather than expertise. This encourages paying more attention to written questions – where MPs have a privileged ability to get answers to questions (and there’s indirect evidence this has been happening as part of some MPs’ second employment). 

We need to care where donations come from, rather than being too focused on what they were spent on.  A general throughline in the discourse is catching when people are benefiting privately from their position (e.g. receiving gifts) – but there’s also the situation that private donors are supporting the public work of politicians (for instance, funding researchers in their offices). With a “follow the money” hat on, this should be seen as an investment in relationships with politicians that might pay off later rather than being purely public spirited. 

We need to be aware that transparency in this area has been a hedge against more substantial reform (e.g. disclose bad things rather than stop doing bad things). This compromise position has usefulness for both sides. For those who want stricter rules, it encourages politicians to have one eye on public opinion through disclosure requirements, and generates a regular series of news stories helpful in future reform. 

But for those opposed to stricter rules, transparency can be framed as approval – where the electorate is argued to have endorsed MPs’ choices. Conversations become about if the rules were followed rather than the underlying issues, and when the regime is only half-heartedly supported, non-disclosure can be common (meaning that scrutiny falls more on those correctly disclosing rather than those who do not). 

In general, we see increasing the transparency and getting the most out of the information that is available as the tool we have been given to improve the situation. But we shouldn’t lose sight that transparency is a means, not an end in itself. 

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From this work, we’ve created a set of questions that make sure we draw out important aspects of the register. Next week our volunteers will start to answer these questions. 

These questions cover all sections of the register. We’re asking volunteers to help us understand which industries are showing up in MPs’ registers, and whether they are declaring an interest in debates and questions when they’re supposed to be.  We’ll compare the Register of Interests against Companies’ House with support from new data from Any One Thing, and we’ll get volunteers to give MPs’ registered interests and overall transparency score. The process will also include a right of reply, so MP’s can respond to the summaries we write. 

We do this work because we think it is possible to make politics better from the outside. Through combining the effort of volunteers with the lever of technology, we can make a real difference in how things work. 

If you’d like to support this project – please donate today.

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

A month has rolled by and look what amazing work the Global Access to Information Network members have achieved!

FragDenStaat: have been uncovering issues in the German medical system where patient symptoms are missed, hospitals are understaffed and the system is squeezed. 

mySociety: have been onboarding our first partners onto the Projects self- service to check it works, and writing user guides to help people navigate the new features. We’ve also added the Pro service to KiMitTud!

Access Info: have been working hard with both Arthro5a and VreauInfo, working on project plans with MaDada and SPOON alongside launching a campaign with Article 19 in Europe on recommendations for implementation of reg 1049 for transparency in Europe. They’re also still accepting nominations for their transparency Impact Award until September 9th 

Sieć Obywatelska Watchdog Polska: are busy organising an event on Transparency to link with International Right to Know day on September 28th and also protesting against dangerous border policies which risk migrant lives when crossing into Poland. 

MaDada: Ma Dada has been planning their project with AccessInfo, and crunching data for their upcoming observatory of access to documents.

ForSet: are super busy organising DataFest in Tbilisi, Georgia which is happening 19-21 September 2024. They’d love to see any familiar faces from the network if anyone is going along!

ImamoPravoZnati: Gong has been collecting data on the implementation of civic education in Croatian schools (including forms and level at which it is being implemented, number of pupils involved and number of teachers trained to implement it) by filing requests to local and regional government units, in hopes of mapping the regional disbalances and other issues pertaining to the current policy framework for formal civic education.

KiMitTud: have been filing requests to the Sovereignty Protection Office, looking into how they’d requested authorities to collect data on an ongoing basis which went beyond their remit.  

DostupDoPravda: have been investigating everything from the denial of access to state secrets to complaints to the Human Rights Commissioner over ATI violations. 

Vouliwatch/Arthro5A: are continuing their campaign work and also launching a new site monitoring the Greek Government commitments to marine conservation and their progress towards those commitments. 

Plaza Cívica: has been making strides in improving public transport in Lima and Callao. We took on the challenge of mapping and updating the data for 521 public transport routes, which was no easy task given the messy and outdated information we had to work with. This initiative required extensive public information requests from various government agencies and collaboration with private entities. Now, anyone in the city can use Google Maps to find the best routes for their commute. This project is just one way we use open data to make everyday life easier and push for more transparency and civic engagement.

Datos Concepción: are working with local authorities in Entre Ríos (Argentina) to improve the access to info law (2017) , focused on modifying the application process into the local government. Also are working on the 5th annual plan of Argentina on OGP related to the federal programme. 

PPDC:  we are currently conducting both National and Sub-national Freedom of Information (FOI) rankings in Nigeria, covering 250 MDAs at the national level and 152 MDAs across 3 states (Adamawa, Ekiti, Kaduna). Additionally, we’re actively working on expanding community engagement to various sub-nationals, aiming to enhance their procurement processes for greater transparency and accountability. Furthermore, we’re excited to be extending our reach to 2 additional states (Oyo and Anambra), empowering CSOs and citizens with the skills and knowledge needed to effectively utilize the FOI Act to hold the government accountable.

AccessInfo Hong Kong: We are about to launch a manual on www.civicsight.org in English and Cantonese on how to use the AccessInfo platform to both make requests but also to appeal to the Ombudsman when requests are either not responded to in full or at all by the Hong Kong Government.

Article 19 Eastern Africa: Ongoing assessment of Kenya’s status of implementation of the Access to Information Act. Launch of new Strategic Plan for Eastern Africa 2024-2027 entitled “Stronger for Expression’ with ATI and Information Integrity as part of key strategic pillars. Launch of annual report- Eastern Africa: A year of repression and resistance.

Abrimos Info: There is a constitutional reform on “organic simplification” in México already approved in commission in the lower chamber, about to remove the autonomy of INAI (the national authority in access to information). There is great alarm about the future of the transparency system in the whole ecosystem. You can read more in spanish: INAI’s reaction and journalistic analysis.

Civic Data Lab: Please find some of our key updates here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/strengthening-our-commitment-towards-resilientindia-civicdatalab-2zkgc/ 

OpenUp ZA: Through our Data Desk – supported by the Africa Data Hub – we have been providing support to African journalists to interpret and visualise data (and FOI record data). We will be expanding the Data Desk to provide data sourcing, analysis and visualisation services to South Africa’s anti-corruption civil society community, from September. We have also been developing a research framework to try and unpack success criteria from historical FOI data to help automate the generation of successful FOI requests.

Other news: In Europe the IJ4EU have launched 2 cross border funds which might be of interest to sites working with journalists – one for teams, and one for freelancers; you can read more here and here.

Photo by Fons Heijnsbroek on Unsplash

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.