Keeping tabs on the UK’s parliaments & assemblies
FOI Fest 2026
26 February 2026 @ 10:00 am
Last Thursday, a diverse set of people with a common interest came together at Birkbeck College in London for FOI Fest — a one day conference examining the successes, challenges and future of the Freedom of Information Act. We heard from a wide range of perspectives: those who use FOI, those who process requests, those…
Mapping energy data to help community spaces take part in electricity network flexibility
17 February 2026 @ 3:36 pm
While the mapping services we’re most well known for are FixMyStreet, MapIt, and the Local Intelligence Hub, we do occasionally get the opportunity to collaborate with other organisations that share our ethos and could benefit from our expertise building flexible, easy-to-use data maps, for their internal teams or external supporters to use. One such example…
AI self-governance: it’s a continuous process
12 February 2026 @ 9:04 am
In July 2024, we published our AI Framework, a first attempt at setting guidelines on how we utilise AI in our work at mySociety. The basic principles running through that framework can be summed up as “Use AI responsibly, and only when, all things considered, it is the best tool for the job”. That position…
Improving the Written Questions system
11 February 2026 @ 9:42 am
Submitting evidence to Parliamentary inquiries is one of the ways in which we can have an effect on the way things work in this country. As you may recall, we recently contributed to the Scottish Parliament’s Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee on Freedom of Information reform, and now we’ve submitted written evidence to the UK…
When you have a big Freedom of Information project, many hands make light work
2 February 2026 @ 11:12 am
WhatDoTheyKnow Pro, our Freedom of Information service for users such as journalists, researchers and campaigners, now comes with Projects bundled in at no extra cost. That means that, as well as sending batch requests more easily, you can also bring in colleagues or volunteers to help you refine and analyse the data you receive in…
How to get active with the Council Climate Action Scorecards
30 January 2026 @ 10:08 am
As we’ve seen in our recent case studies, the Council Climate Action Scorecards — a joint project between Climate Emergency UK (CE UK) and mySociety — rely on the power and energy of volunteers. Most volunteers get their start when they help to mark councils’ climate action for the Scorecards; and then some, it seems,…
New report: Shifting landscapes
29 January 2026 @ 10:24 am
Today we’re launching a new report: Shifting Landscapes: A practical guide to pro democratic tech. This report builds on the conferences, seminars and conversations we’ve been having in our TICTeC programme over the last few years, to present a comprehensive picture of where pro democratic tech is now. We explore how technology can strengthen and…
Faster reporting on FixMyStreet: start your report with a photo
22 January 2026 @ 4:56 pm
A new feature has been released for FixMyStreet giving users the option to start their reports with a photo, the data from which can be extracted to speed up the reporting process. As well as making the reporting process quicker, this new functionality should also increase the accuracy of reports, removing the need for users…
A tribute to Mark Longair
15 January 2026 @ 4:15 pm
It was with immense sadness that the mySociety team learned of the death of our much loved ex-colleague Mark Longair. Mark first came to mySociety as a volunteer, contributing his time and coding knowledge to build scrapers and parsers that brought Scottish Parliament data into TheyWorkForYou. Knowing a good developer when we saw one, we…
Leaky Pipes: What’s wrong with donations data
15 January 2026 @ 9:00 am
As part of our WhoFundsThem work we want to make better information available about money in politics. Last year we released a report Beyond Transparency – looking at the UK Parliament’s register of financial interests, and wider arguments about how we fund politics. Today we’re releasing a follow-up report: Leaky Pipes (read online or download…