Keeping tabs on the UK’s parliaments & assemblies
FOI Network: what we discovered in workshop 2
20 April 2026 @ 11:42 am
We continue with exploratory work that will help shape what the FOI Network will become, and how it will best serve specific types of those who use Freedom Of Information. Last week, in our second workshop of three, we convened journalists and specialist users to help us understand what the barriers are to their use…
Scorecards “create a level of accountability across the whole organisation to play their part”
20 April 2026 @ 8:28 am
Liz Vango-Smith is Sustainability and Climate Change Officer at Hart District Council, where she manages the climate change programme, helping to meet their carbon reduction targets both internally, and across the district. She recently took the time to speak to us about the part that the Council Climate Action Scorecards play in her work. Liz…
How data might help solve the sewage problem (with a little help from WriteToThem)
16 April 2026 @ 8:03 am
Have you visited sewagemap.co.uk? If you care about your local rivers, lakes and seas, you might want to take a look at this very graphic display of where sewage is being discharged across England. If you’re wondering which sense of ‘graphic’ we mean, well, it’s both: first, it’s easy to see the information at a…
Responding to AI-driven demand on public systems
14 April 2026 @ 12:51 pm
LLMs can increase demand on public systems by removing the friction that previously limited access. One potential result of this is new forms of unconsidered rationing that recreate that friction. Instead, we should move away from zero sum systems and aim for technical and policy approaches that turn unscalable private benefits into efficient collective ones. …
FOI Network: how can we strengthen access to information?
14 April 2026 @ 8:03 am
The FOI Network is an informal coalition of civil society organisations, journalists and academics with an interest in Freedom of Information, convened by mySociety and State of the Future. Last week, we held our first meet-up, in the shape of an online workshop, to discuss and prioritise the ways in which we might strengthen and…
Building skills and capacity in youth organisations, with the Social Investment Business
13 April 2026 @ 11:05 am
We’ve just started a new project exploring how improved data and training could help youth services in England – building their financial sustainability and representing their communities at a national policy level. Working with the Social Investment Business (SIB), which coordinates the government’s Youth Investment Fund, we’ll be talking to youth organisations across the North…
The growing case to protect FOI
8 April 2026 @ 2:36 pm
In a recent blog post, we set out why proposals to reduce the Freedom of Information cost limit would reduce government transparency, without meaningfully reducing the burden on public authorities, since then the opposition to the move has grown. What’s the problem? On 18 March 2026, The Financial Times reported that the government is considering…
How can we tell when AI is actually the right tool for the job?
24 March 2026 @ 9:11 am
Generative AI is good at solving some kinds of problems, and bad at solving others. With the rush to apply AI approaches across the public and private sector, we want to encourage people to use the right tool for the right problem. This blog post proposes a test that makes it easy to understand whether…
Reducing FOI cost limits will reduce government transparency
19 March 2026 @ 3:46 pm
Key points Lowering the cost limit time would reduce the scope of the Freedom of Information Act, giving government departments greater leeway to deny requests. This will have a disproportionate effect on high-impact Freedom of Information requests made by journalists and researchers. It represents a new restriction on public scrutiny of government, counter to promises…
Exploring a European Civic Tech Hub to tackle barriers to civic tech impact
17 March 2026 @ 4:29 pm
Our latest TICTeC work to help improve the impacts of civic technology takes its form in a collaboration with Sitra (the Finnish Innovation Fund). Together, we are exploring the development of a proposed European Civic Tech Hub. As part of the Democracy Shield, the European Commission has committed to creating a European Civic Tech Hub…