TheyWorkForYou

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

TheyWorkForYou is a website run by mySociety, which is itself a project of UK Citizens Online Democracy, a registered charity.

The site aggregates content from the Hansard records of the British House of Commons, the House of Lords and the Northern Ireland Assembly and makes it available in an accessible and commentable format. In addition, various metadata about the representatives are provided including, for example, analysis of MPs' voting record and their entries in the Register of Members' Interests. It also includes functionality that allows users to be emailed when an arbitrary MP speaks in Parliament or when an arbitrary topic is discussed.

[edit] History

TheyWorkForYou was originally built almost entirely by volunteers, but mySociety now pays Matthew Somerville to keep the site running and up-to-date as part of his wider work for mySociety. However, things are still added voluntarily by anyone who wishes. The site was set up voluntarily because the founders felt it should be really easy for people to keep tabs on their elected MPs, and their unelected Peers, and comment on what goes on in Parliament.

In early 2006, Tom Loosemore and Stefan Magdalinski decided that the overlap of people and goals with mySociety was so substantial that it was best to pass the running of the site over to mySociety. In summer 2006, the Department for Constitutional Affairs funded the creation of an open API for the site. Matthew Somerville added the Northern Ireland Assembly "as an early Christmas present" in 2006, partly in the hope that somebody else would do the same for the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly. Similarly, the concept has been taken by a New Zealand developer who created TheyWorkForYou New Zealand / Aotearoa.

The site was conceived and built by:
  • Stefan Magdalinski
  • Dorian McFarland
  • Anno Mitchell
  • Danny O'Brien
  • Sam Smith
  • Matthew Somerville
  • Tom Steinberg
  • Stuart Tily
  • Julian Todd
  • Denise Wilton

Matthew Somerville is now employed by mySociety in order to update and maintain TheyWorkForYou as a part of his wider mySociety work.

[edit] External links


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