Campaign journalism for a UK that demands better
May 2026 brought a new intake of metro mayors and combined authority deals. By November 2026, their first delivery plans and board papers are public — and it is time to test whether the pledges are real money with dates attached, or glossy boilerplate designed to expire quietly. This is a document-by-document audit method, a public scorecard and a letter to send before the next board meeting.
A section 114 notice is the formal recognition of a crisis that has been building for years. This guide shows campaigners how to audit the financial resilience statement, compare it with peer authorities, and turn exceptional financial support requests into a public dossier that names the cuts, the protected services and the decision-makers.
Every pothole compensation settlement is a public receipt for a road the council already knew was failing. This guide shows campaigners how to FOI the compensation ledger, match it against the resurfacing budget and contractor performance data, then turn the evidence into a budget-day dossier and a public map of neglect.
Emergency procurement is sometimes necessary, but it is also where scrutiny most easily disappears. This guide shows campaigners how to request waiver logs, cross-reference them with contract and spending data, and turn patterns of repeated urgency into a public accountability dossier.
Section 106 agreements are the quiet contracts behind new housing: affordable homes, play space, transport fixes and cash for schools. This guide shows how to pull the register, match every obligation to evidence of delivery, and turn unbuilt promises into a public dossier before your council signs off its local plan.
Public consultation is supposed to be a democratic checkpoint, not a ceremonial afterthought. This guide sets out how campaigners can audit the paper trail, timelines and spending behind a council consultation — and publish a scorecard that asks whether residents’ views could ever have changed the decision.
Every year the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman publishes a public record of council failures: upheld complaints, missed remedies and repeated service breakdowns. This guide shows campaigners how to turn that neglected ledger into a scrutiny dossier, a set of FOI follow-ups and a public case for change before the next budget vote.
Every year councils pass thousands of council tax, parking and housing debts to private enforcement agents. This audit kit shows how to request the contracts, fee income and vulnerability policies that reveal who profits from local collection — and who is left exposed.
Councils increasingly deliver services through arm’s-length companies that sit outside normal democratic scrutiny. This practical guide shows how to identify those entities from the statement of accounts, pull their Companies House filings and turn directors’ pay, procurement and conflicts of interest into a campaign.
Twenty working days is not a target; it is the legal limit. Yet across Britain, councils treat the FOI clock as a suggestion. This guide shows you how to turn published statistics, internal reviews and a simple request into a public scorecard for your council.
A 20-week deadline for an Education, Health and Care plan is not paperwork. It is a child’s access to support. When councils miss it routinely, the numbers are a moral record — and a scrutiny question they cannot wave away.
Your council may have declared a climate emergency while its pension fund keeps billions in fossil fuel exposure. This guide explains how to obtain the holdings, read the committee papers and turn the numbers into a credible divestment campaign.
Private Finance Initiative contracts signed decades ago are still taking money out of council budgets. The least councils can do is publish a full, readable PFI liability register before the next budget is set.
Every council in Britain holds a record of empty homes, council tax exemptions and long-term vacant property. Too often that record sits unpublished while the housing waiting list grows. This is a campaign argument and a practical template for turning the empty homes ledger into a demand for refurbishment, compulsory purchase or community use.
Storm overflows are not only an engineering failure; they are a financial choice. This guide explains how to pull a water company’s annual report, dividend declarations and executive bonus figures, set them against storm overflow data and Ofwat enforcement records, and turn the resulting ledger into a public campaign ahead of the next regulatory settlement.
Council reserves are not one emergency pot of cash. They are a set of accounting categories, some flexible, some ring-fenced, and all too often invoked as a reason to cut services. This guide shows how to read the statement of accounts, compare reserves with planned cuts, and put the right questions to your Section 151 officer before council tax is set.
Lobbying registers are meant to make influence visible before decisions are taken. Too often they are late, thin or missing altogether, and the gaps line up with planning and procurement choices. This is a field guide to reading the silence, cross-referencing entries, and demanding a standard that puts influence on the record.
Procurement is not back-office housekeeping. It is where a council's climate pledges, outsourcing habits and fossil-fuel links become legally binding. The contract register is the document that lets residents test the gap between the two.
Storm overflow data is public, but it becomes powerful only when it is local, comparable and attached to a name. Here is a practical route from a postcode search to a question a water company board cannot dismiss.
Most councils publish enough information to be held to account — and bury enough of it to avoid being. This is a two-hour method for establishing which is happening in your town hall, from the climate action plan and its budget lines to planning committee votes and a ready-made environmental information request.