New report on money in politics

Over the last few months we've been working with volunteers to explore and answer questions about the Register of MPs' Financial Interests.

Based on this we've added several new features to TheyWorkForYou, and have published a major report on improving the register and money in politics. 

Here’s Julia explaining what we learned in 60 seconds:

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

You can learn about the different conclusions from this project here:

• Better data collection to achieve more accurate interests information
• Stronger checks to make sure the interests information is reliable
• Tighter rules so there are fewer unacceptable interests in the first place
• 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. 

There’s a lot more work we want to do and think we can make a real difference. If you want to support our work, please consider making a donation.

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