News, opportunities and events

Do something different: join our Board!

We currently have several vacancies available on the boards of mySociety and our wholly owned subsidiary SocietyWorks — providing exciting possibilities for the right people. Might you be one of them?

These are voluntary roles and therefore unpaid, but reasonable expenses are of course covered. We believe that this opportunity offers experiences quite unlike any you’re likely to find elsewhere, and will prove rewarding to the right candidates.

If that sounds of interest, please check out our recruitment pack where you’ll discover lots more about the kind of people we’re looking for, and instructions for how to apply.

Now then, Northern

With rail workers' salaries in the news thanks to the recent train strikes, one FOI response obtained through WhatDoTheyKnow was very timely, and well-placed to inform public debate. It lists the salaries and job titles of the ten highest paid managers at Northern Trains, a publicly-owned rail company.

Northern themselves clearly felt otherwise, though, because they asked us to remove the information. Did we do so? The WhatDoTheyKnow team takes up the story here.

A visit from Georgia

It may be a strange way to learn about another country's history and culture, but it's always an effective one: ask what their Freedom of Information rights are like!

We recently learned a lot about the former Soviet state of Georgia, thanks to a visit from Teona Tomashvili. Her organisation ForSet have set up an Alaveteli site and we had a great time swapping notes. You can enjoy the same insights in this post.

Join us online at these climate-focused events

TICTeC Climate Surgery

July 14

The next TICTeC Civic Tech Surgery will, through the lens of climate action, examine how civic tech can help coordinate action that’s greater than the sum of its parts. It should be inspiring!

Discussants will include Jacopo Ottaviani, Chief Data Officer at Code for Africa, and Laurence Watson, Head of Technology at Subak. Find out more and book your place here.

Innovations in climate tech

September 21

Are you using digital technology or data to tackle the climate emergency at a local level? If so, the world needs to know! Come and help spark the imagination, by showcasing your project in front of an international audience on September 21, via Zoom.

More details on how to get involved here.

Sustain: talking to councils about food and farming

We learned something when we talked to Sustain: councils have a huge role in how food is produced. Obvious when you think about it — they're big buyers of food for schools and care services; and some of them even own their own farms.

If you're from a council, you should explore Sustain's new online tool to help you make change around food and farming. And there are lots of transferrable ideas here for any campaign whose cause is impacted by climate, even if marginally. See how Sustain used climate action plans to open conversations with councils, here.

Call for proposals: accessing good quality data

As part of mySociety's TICTeC Labs programme, the TICTeC Action Lab #3 working group is looking for an individual, organisation or joint team to produce resources to help train organisations or the public in accessing good quality data.

There is $3,760 USD (inclusive of taxes) available for this work. If you’re interested in applying, then please read these details and fill in this application form by July 28. 

Civic tech in hostile environments:

How can we thrive in challenging contexts?

September 8

Civic tech practitioners around the world are operating in the face of all kinds of hostile environments. Some face governmental resistance to their services; others are trying to keep websites up and running within a conflict zone. In Civic Tech Surgery #6, we'll discuss some of these challenges and how we might put solutions in place that will benefit organisations globally.

Everyone is welcome to join in this discussion: reserve your place here for free.

What we're consuming

Bumper edition

• The Code For All Summit 2022 is open for proposals — but only 'til tomorrow, so hurry if you'd like to run a session (it's remote).
• Full Fact are campaigning around corrections to Parliament's official record — that is, amendments to Hansard where an MP is found to have made a false or misleading statement.
• IPSA made a video to explode myths around MPs' expenses.
• Jacob Rees Mogg led the charge on the deletion of MPs' attendance data. TheyWorkForYou users often ask us whether a specific MP was present for a specific debate: and unless they have voted, we can't answer because the data isn't there. Now we can't even find out if they were in the building.  
• If that's sparked your desire to make FOI requests, you might find some inspiration in this article from our pals across the ocean, Muckrock.
• Is China more democratic than the US? Depends if you ask a Chinese person or an American one.
• Have you ever considered that you might just not be pessimistic enough?
• An interesting story about the least-viewed articles on Wikipedia. Spoiler: moths don't come out of this well.

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