TheyWorkForYou
TheyWorkForYou is a website run by mySociety, a project of registered charity UK Citizens Online Democracy, and is a tool for political campaigners and those interested in the Parliamentary activities of UK MPs, Lords, and Northern Ireland MLAs.
The site aggregates content from the Hansard records of the House of Commons, House of Lords, Scottish Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly, along with other publicly available data such as the MPs Register of Members' Interests, election results, Wikipedia entries, and voting records, providing a "digital dossier on your local MP".[1] It also has a facility to alert users by email to speeches by an MP or specific words appearing in Hansard. In 2008 The Telegraph rated it 41st in a list of the 101 most useful websites [2].
History
TheyWorkForYou was originally built almost entirely by volunteers using the parsing software of Public Whip, and launched at NTK's NotCon '04 conference.[3] At the time, Cory Doctorow called it "the most amazing, subversive piece of political webware I've ever seen".[4]
As time passed, more features were added and more areas of Parliament were covered, such as the House of Lords back to 1999.[5] Around the 2005 general election, Channel 4 used a branded version of TheyWorkForYou to supply their MP data.[6] The site won the Community and Innovation award in the 2005 New Statesman New Media Awards, with the judges saying that they "were unanimous in feeling that TheyWorkForYou was the nomination that has done most to contribute to civic society in the UK.".[7] In the House of Lords, in a debate on the Power Inquiry, Lord Gould of Brookwood referred to TheyWorkForYou and the other mySociety sites as "probably the biggest single catalyst for political change in this country".[8]
In summer 2006, the Department for Constitutional Affairs funded the creation of an API for the site so other sites could use the data from the site themselves.[9] Later that year, Matthew Somerville added the entire Northern Ireland Assembly Hansard and all MLAs to the site.[10] The concept has also been taken by a New Zealand developer who has created TheyWorkForYou.co.nz and it is hoped someone will do the same for the Welsh Assembly, and other political institutions. In April 2009, an Irish version of TheyWorkForYou was launched in beta form. Called KildareStreet.com, it contains Irish parliamentary data from January 2004 to the present day.
TheyWorkForYou has become so established in the workings of Parliament itself that one MP has used the fact that her husband subscribes to email alerts on her speeches to remind him of their 30th wedding anniversary.[11]
Controversies
When the site launched, it did not have the right to reproduce Hansard, and no licence for it existed. A licence was later given, and click-use licences for Parliamentary copyright information were created as a result.[12]
In early 2006, The Times published an article stating that MPs were "making forgettable contributions to debate" or tabling numerous written questions simply to boost their statistics on TheyWorkForYou.[13] This led to a debate in the House of Commons on the increase in questions, led by Peter Luff.[14] The site removed the absolute rankings and added some more explanatory text in response,[15] and held a meeting at Parliament later in the year to discuss better metrics.[16] In summer 2006, Jack Straw Leader of the House of Commons also mentioned TheyWorkForYou as a site which "seems to measure Members' work in quantitative rather than qualitative terms."[17]
In a Business debate on 26 April 2007, Theresa May stated that TheyWorkForYou had been "threatened with legal action for repeating what was printed in Hansard."; Jack Straw confirmed that "publication ... of a fair and accurate account of a debate in either House is protected".[18]
Notes
- ^ Checking up on the ruling class - Times Online
- ^ The 101 most useful websites
- ^ New Statesman - MAKE THEM WORK FOR YOU
- ^ TheyWorkForYou: finest advocacy web-app in the world - Boing Boing
- ^ We've added the Lords, and more: TheyWorkForYou news (TheyWorkForYou.com)
- ^ Enter a postcode on http://www.channel4.com/news/microsites/E/election2005/yourmp.html
- ^ New Media Awards 2005 - The winners
- ^ Democracy: Power Inquiry: 15 Jun 2006: House of Lords debates (TheyWorkForYou.com)
- ^ UK Citizens Online Democracy - Finances
- ^ The Northern Ireland Assembly: TheyWorkForYou news (TheyWorkForYou.com)
- ^ Social Policy and the Relief of Poverty: 11 Jul 2007: House of Commons debates (TheyWorkForYou.com)
- ^ Make it work for us, Ms Tullo | Special Reports | Guardian Unlimited Politics
- ^ The MPs who can't stop talking - Times Online
- ^ I am grateful for that point, with...: 28 Jun 2006: House of Commons debates (TheyWorkForYou.com)
- ^ Help (TheyWorkForYou.com)
- ^ New Statesman - The net effect on parliament
- ^ ePolitix.com - Straw attacks MPs' researchers
- ^ The website TheyWorkForYou.com has...: 26 Apr 2007: House of Commons debates (TheyWorkForYou.com)