News from mySociety

Information release

Vaccine sequences on WhatDoTheyKnow

A significant moment for our FOI site this week: the nucleotide sequences of the AstraZeneca and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines used in the UK were released in response to a Freedom of Information request made via WhatDoTheyKnow. Thanks to the request being made in public, they're now available to anyone. Read more here.

Climate

Be a Net Zero Local Hero

While world leaders at COP26 debate policy on a global scale, it's easy for us 'mere citizens' to feel rather insignificant in the face of the climate emergency.

But we're here to remind just how much you can achieve in your own neighbourhood with our Net Zero Local Hero campaign. If you're itching to play your part but you're not quite sure how, check it out!

Event

Discover the Climate Action Plan Explorer – and tell us what you need

We'll be at COP 26, albeit virtually — and you can join us this Monday. As part of the COP 26 Coalition People's Summit we'll be presenting CAPE, our Climate Action Plans Explorer, and asking you what new features you would find useful in holding your local councils to account on climate.

Do come along! Registration is free.

Need climate tools?

We're adding new features and tools to the Climate Action Plans Explorer all the time. If you'd like to know when there's something new to try out, subscribe to our Climate mailing list.

Case study

Friends of the Earth & Climate Action Plans data

Friends of the Earth recently ran a campaign, encouraging supporters to ask their local councils for stronger climate action. To ensure it worked, they required one crucial piece of data — and fortunately, we were able to provide it. See more here.

Transparency

PACAC inquiry submission

We've written about the Cabinet Office's 'clearing house' for FOI requests in our recent Reforming Freedom of Information report. Now a House of Commons inquiry is taking place and we've submitted evidence.  All the details here.

Poo's in the news

With untreated sewage top of the news agenda for a while there, it seemed like the perfect time to look at requesting information on the nation's sewerage and waterworks via WhatDoTheyKnow.

Event report

TICTeC Surgery #1: Public-private collaborations

TICTeC continues to evolve, and our latest programme convenes experts to discuss and then build practical solutions to the most pervasive issues in Civic Tech. That's the plan, anyway, and it's certainly going well so far.

Democracy

Data, design and research on TheyWorkForYou

Three things you should know about TheyWorkForYou this month:

• We've changed the way we calculate and display whether MPs vote in consensus with the rest of their party;
• We've updated some visual  elements, including the emails we send out, the API page and some of the more out-of-date photos of MPs;
• And, to inform part of this, we researched into how people use our alerts service.

Vacancy

Perl/Python Developer

Our commercial arm, SocietyWorks, continues its recruitment drive and is looking for experienced Perl and Python developers to work on our SaaS products for clients in local government.

Read the job description and see how to apply here.

What we're reading

• Terence Eden on the failings of the Google info box.
• The reminder designers regularly need: most people aren't great at using computers.
• Academics at University College Dublin are developing algorithms to help the financial services sector detect greenwashing.
• Thing you'd be able to spot if an FOI response was fake? The National, Scotland's pro-independence paper, ran an interesting story.
• An FOI response revealed government was in a palaver at responding to one of Adam Bienkov's tweets.

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