Parliamentary Registers of MPs' Interests, Lords' Interests and All-Party Groups

Status: 
Closed
Outcome: 
New dataset released
Notes: 

With thanks to Owen Boswarva for providing the links for this request.

Please note that the status of this request has ben amended, as it was incorrectly labelled.

Data request description: 
Information contained in the House of Commons Register of Members' Financial Interests, the House of Lords Register of Lords' Interests, and the Register of All-Party Groups (both Houses). I have provided links and additional information in a comment appended to this request.
Reason: 
The data is published but not in a format I can download and use (e.g. only displayed onscreen or only downloadable as a PDF rather than CVS)
The information is currently published in a semi-structured fashion as HTML and/or in PDF documents on the Parliament website. I have provided links and additional information in a comment appended to this request. I am seeking release of the information as bulk data in a machine-readable format.
Suggested use: 
Other
Release of this information as machine-readable open data will facilitate analysis of links between UK parliamentarians and outside organisations, and will complement use of other datasets related to the democratic process (such as MPs' expenses and the proposed statutory register of lobbyists).
Benefits overview: 
This release will enhance the transparency of our democratic process by promoting public scrutiny of the outside interests of those who represent us in Parliament. Making the information readily accessible in bulk will encourage developers to re-present the information in ways that increase public understanding. This will give the information a higher profile and make it easier for citizens and the media to identify conflicts of interest, and discourage them.

Comments

Supplementary information to the above request

Following are links to the Registers in the form currently available to the public:

     The Register of Members' Financial Interests (House of Commons)

     Register of Lords' Interests (House of Lords)

     Register of All-Party Groups (both Houses)

The current MPs' Register is available as multiple HTML pages or a single PDF document; the current Lords Register is available as multiple HTML pages with a PDF version "in development"; and the current APG Register is available as multiple HTML pages or a single PDF document.

The supporting guidance indicates that some of the data underlying the Registers may be held in structured databases, so there is reason to hope it could be published in a more user-friendly format.

In the absence of more specific language in these documents, all of the information currently published seems to be subject to the Open Parliament Licence. In other words the issue is accessibility of the information as bulk data, rather than any lack of re-use rights.

There have been some third-party efforts to scrape some of the information in the Registers; for example the Allparty website and James Ball's recent article on the MPs' Register. However the Registers would be far more transparent if Parliament published the information in a reusable and/or machine-readable format to the standard we normally now expect of public sector information.

Many thanks for your attention to this data request.

-- Owen Boswarva, 03/06/2013

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Good news

According to a tweet from the Speaker's Commission on Digital Democracy, MPs' and Lords' registers of interest are "on the list" to be added to data.parliament.uk, hopefully by next month.

-- Owen Boswarva, 05/11/2014

Update:

Data.Parliament has now released an API for the Lords' Register of Interests. I gather they are working on providing similar access to the MPs' Register of Interests.

I have used the API to create a "snapshot" of the complete Lords' Register of Interests, and written a blog post about it. The dataset is re-usable under the Open Parliament Licence.

-- Owen Boswarva, 09/11/2014

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Why has this request been closed?

Why has this request been closed? None of the three datasets covered by the request have been released as open data yet.

-- Owen Boswarva, 13/11/2014

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Report of the Speaker’s Commission on Digital Democracy

I'm still unclear on why this data request has been closed. However today's Report of the Speaker’s Commission on Digital Democracy includes a recommendation that the register of MPs' interests should be made available as open data by the end of 2015. That may provide some impetus.

-- Owen Boswarva, 26/01/2015

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