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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.
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.
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.