Gareth Rees
@_gareth
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Transparency Programme Lead & Programmer | @mysociety / @whatdotheyknow / @cardiffrb / @_buildingbeauty 20/21
Cardiff, UK
Joined February 2009
🔔Final Call 🔔 Last chance to book in for our webinar tomorrow – “A guide to making successful freedom of information request” Space is limited to first come first served, so if you haven’t yet booked your space make sure to book today! 🔗 Sign up now: https://t.co/in3Mu8I9GQ
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As part of the 20 year celebrations we are holding our first webinar of 2025. If you are a member of the public, a campaigner or just someone want to access their information rights, this is the webinar for you. 🔗 Register now: https://t.co/in3Mu8I9GQ
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THAT'S better. Adding height AND making London more gorgeous & interesting. Bravo to our friend @FTerryArchitect & Finchatton for improving London. No rules of economics or physics stops us making our streets more lovely - only modish malevolence & the curious concept of
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The first set of FOI stats for central govt since the general election has been published today and shows a similar pattern under Labour to the FOI performance of the Conservative govt - which is not surprising.
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A charity donation makes a great Christmas gift, and if you care about democracy, transparency, community & climate, we'll put it to very good use. https://t.co/67QNjYLYNo
#Thankyou
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Freedom of information doesn't just require public bodies to respond to the requests they receive - they also have to publish information, letting people access it directly. Some examples below of news stories from across the UK which arose from published information. 👇
I love a Freedom of Information request. I also love not sending an FOI request. As a data journalist, sometimes it’s easier to go digging through published data for the story rather than using FOI, especially if what y...
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Top tips on data visualisation! If you're interested in this, you might also like how you can use data visualisation from FOI data to tell some really compelling stories
mysociety.org
https://youtu.be/aKBoi-Qy9sE?si=O7vXHP9YOS4i9osy Organisations all around the world run Freedom of Information sites based on our Alaveteli platform. There are also sites running on other codebases....
What are 4 Keys to Effective Data Visualisation: 1. Understand Your Audience 2. Choose the Right Visualisation Type 3. Keep it Simple 4. Use Colour Wisely Learn more:
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I’ve at last got around to setting up a blog to about UK transparency law. It is a crucial democratic safeguard, but it is imperfect, treated with distain by many in government, and often badly enforced. You can read all about it on Relight My FOIA https://t.co/qZHTDYaIUX
relightmyfoia.blog
How to use transparency law to hold government to account
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.@TBIJ is looking for a data journalist with in-depth experience of scraping to work on an ongoing investigation. If you're interested, or can suggest someone who might be, please drop me a DM
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@WhatDoTheyKnow If you're struggling to manage loads of FOIs, @whatdotheyknow and several of the international FOI sites have installed our latest pro features which help make it easier to send and manage larger investigations https://t.co/dFUDWphJSJ 3/3
whatdotheyknow.com
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@WhatDoTheyKnow There's also a whole network of international partners who use our code to run their own FOI platform https://t.co/ewx1fkcdUu 2/3
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Really enjoyed how this podcast explored using FOI alongside other reporting tactics. A key idea is using existing requests to see how the data might be held and how to best phrase a request. Chuffed to see @whatdotheyknow mentioned – we've over 1m FOI requests published now! 1/3
Last week we spoke to journalist @toledoluizf about investigating deforestation using open data sources. You can find the full podcast episode live now on streaming services under 'Stage Talks with Bellingcat' or listen back on our YouTube here:
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Our friends at @TheBristolCable are 90% to their fundraising target, which will unlock a crucial bonus grant of £40,000. They do a lot of valuable journalism - support them via this link. https://t.co/LdYOJoy0Ls
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Our Alaveteli software which helps people run FOI sites all over the world - including our own @whatdotheyknow - has enjoyed a series of recent improvements. Here's the first - more to follow!
mysociety.org
New functionality on our Alaveteli FOI platform allows you to highlight blog posts and case studies on the homepage.
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It's great that our public feed of information requested from authorities has helped with this analysis. FOI helps uncover emergent themes in what people need information about. Looking forward to seeing what comes out of authorities digging a layer deeper into each theme.
NEW: Together with @WhatDoTheyKnow, we’ve analysed more than 150,000 FOI requests to identify the common themes that people are interested in to help you decide what information you could proactively publish. ⬇️
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I'm so excited about this project I agreed to make a video explaining it! eek! please share, engage etc and check out https://t.co/Fibedq8dzv! ❤️
mysociety.org
Building better information about money in politics.
Got a minute to spare? Watch Julia explain our new WhoFundsThem project 👇
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A great opportunity from @mySociety for journalism students and journalists: 💪 Help hold power to account 🧠 Build skills and knowledge 🤩 Valuable experience to add to a CV https://t.co/rDui4mX6iQ
mysociety.org
Building better information about money in politics.
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Access to information is crucial for journalism. Yet, Member States and the EU itself handle access to information very diversely (and sometimes rather opaque). VIKTORIA KRAETZIG (@Viktoriasophiee) and NEUS VIDAL-MARTI (@neusvidal) with a proposal: https://t.co/ouRDpmPKSR
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NEWS This government is the most secretive ever... FACT Transparency plummets to new low. @PeterKGeoghegan has found that just 34% of resolvable FOI requests were granted in full in 2023, the lowest since records began They've trashed Nolan Principles in every conceivable way
🚨Government transparency plunges to the lowest level ever 🔴Departments and government agencies granted just 34% of “resolvable” Freedom of Information requests in full last year 🔴 Cabinet Office data admits this is “the lowest figure since monitoring began in 2005” 🔴 Public
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🚨Government transparency plunges to the lowest level ever 🔴Departments and government agencies granted just 34% of “resolvable” Freedom of Information requests in full last year 🔴 Cabinet Office data admits this is “the lowest figure since monitoring began in 2005” 🔴 Public
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