The small print on this idea is: Empowering Civil Society & Civil Economy Data Custodians to increase transparency in UK Public Body Supply Chains
As an open data b-corp social enterprise, we've found it challenging to deliver on our promise to administer supply chain transparency provision in the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015 (section 54) because there is no easy way for Government departments to engage with non-government open data registers like ours (https://tiscreport.org). This is not an uncommon problem and has been encountered by many other open data initiatives. In order to accelerate progress and amplify impact on public-private-NFP data collaborations it would be good to find a way to certify trusted non-government data sources. This would give the market confidence to engage and would reduce the need to Government intervention. I just wish I could think of a catchier title...

What is the idea?

The UK will maintain momentum on natural resource transparency at home and abroad by: (1) developing a requirement for extractive and trading companies to report payments to governments for the sale of oil, gas and minerals (commodity trading) as part of the UK mandatory reporting regime; (2) clarifying the content and format of mandatory payments to governments reporting required from UK-incorporated and UK-listed extractive companies; (3) creating a single open data repository for mandatory payments reports by UK-incorporated and UK-listed extractive companies; (4) extending the mandatory reporting regime to extractive companies traded on the AIM market; and (5) arranging for the Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies to introduce equivalent mandatory reporting standards.

Why is this important?

Corruption and fiscal mismanagement in the international natural resources (oil, gas and mining) sector have long been a major concern for governments, extractive companies, investors and civil society. The UK and other countries have achieved good progress in promoting natural resource transparency and accountability over the last 15 years, through both voluntary reporting under the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) and mandatory reporting rules now in force in the UK, across the EU, in Canada and in Norway, and awaiting implementation in the United States. But significant gaps remain in the scope and coverage of extractive companies’ disclosures of payments to governments and in the clarity and accessibility of the disclosed data.

This proposal would address five key weaknesses of the current mandatory payments reporting regime:

(1) The largest payment stream missing from mandatory disclosure is payments to governments for the sale of oil, gas and minerals (commodity trading), an area where corruption risk is acute. Governments’ and state owned enterprises’ sales of the state’s production share in the extractive industries are huge, typically US$ billions per year, and vulnerable to large-scale abuse. From 2011 to 2013, for example, the total value of sales by the national oil companies of Africa’s 10 top oil producers was equal to 56% of their combined government revenues and more than 10 times international aid to these countries. At company level, total payments to governments for oil and gas by Trafigura – the only company that currently voluntarily discloses commodity trading payments – amounted to US$21.2 billion in 2016, significantly more than the US$15.1 billion disclosed by Royal Dutch Shell, Europe’s largest oil company, as total payments for its oil and gas extraction around the world in the same year.

(2) Extractive company reporting under UK transparency rules currently suffers from several deficiencies that clarification of the disclosures’ content and format of would ameliorate: (a) non-inclusion by at least 7 companies of their share of joint venture payments; (b) over-aggregation of projects by at least 7 companies; (c) non-identification of recipient government entities by at least 25 companies; (d) lack of volume data for, and over-aggregation of, in-kind payments by at least 4 companies; (e) failure of UK-listed extractive companies to report under revised requirements for financial year 2017 in both open machine-readable data and “human readable” format (the one company that has so far reported under the new requirements failed to provide open data).

(3) Accessibility issues impair stakeholders’ location and use of extractive companies’ UK disclosures. UK-incorporated companies report via a dedicated Companies House portal that provides no alphabetised index of reports. For UK-listed companies it can be even more difficult to find disclosures on the UK’s National Storage Mechanism (NSM), hosted by Morningstar. The NSM includes several hundred thousand company announcements on many subjects each year but has no dedicated index page for extractives disclosures and (unlike the Companies House portal) no Application Programming Interface (API) where users can gather disclosed data digitally.

(4) About 200 oil, gas and mining companies raise finance on the London Stock Exchange’s secondary AIM market, which is currently exempt from the UK payment disclosure rules. As a leading international growth market, AIM needs an appropriate level of payment transparency for its extractive companies.

(5) The UK together with its Overseas Territories (OTs) and Crown Dependencies (CDs) constitutes one of the world’s leading financial secrecy jurisdictions (see Tax Justice Network, Financial Secrecy Index 2018). Numerous extractive companies are incorporated in the OTs and CDs and currently not subject to payment disclosure rules in those jurisdictions. Similarly, the International Stock Exchange Group, based in the CDs, does not currently require listed extractive companies to report their payments to governments, creating a risk of “forum-shopping” by companies seeking to avoid application of the UK and EU rules.

How would it work?

The UK Government would take forward the five above elements individually and in parallel.

(1) Build on its commitment in the third National Action Plan, and on UK-led discussions at OECD level, by introducing a new mandatory reporting requirement for UK-incorporated and UK-listed extractive and trading companies to report payments to governments for the sale of oil, gas and minerals (commodity trading) under the Reports on Payments to Governments Regulations 2014.

(2) Introduce clarificatory guidance from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) for the Reports on Payments to Governments Regulations 2014 requiring companies to: (a) report their proportionate share of joint venture payments made either directly or indirectly on their behalf by a joint venture operator or other entity, including any payments to state owned enterprises acting as joint venture operator; (b) aggregate two or more project agreements for reporting purposes only where these agreements (i) are both operationally and geographically integrated, (ii) have substantially similar terms and (iii) are signed with the same government; (c) identify by name each national or subnational government entity to which a payment has been made, rather than provide only the country name or only identify the level of government generically; (d) state both the value and the volume of each in-kind (non-cash) payment reported and avoid aggregating in a single figure cash and in-kind payments, or in-kind payments for different commodities. (e) For UK-listed extractive companies, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) would clarify under the Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules that transparency disclosures are required to be in both open machine-readable data format and “human readable” format.

(3) Companies House, the FCA and the NSM/Morningstar would create a single joint open data repository for mandatory payments reports by UK-incorporated and UK-listed extractive companies, equipped with an Application Programming Interface (API) where users can gather disclosed data digitally.

(4) The FCA would work with the London Stock Exchange to incorporate mandatory reporting of payments to governments as a requirement for AIM-traded extractive companies, updating AIM’s current Note for Mining, Oil and Gas Companies (2009) accordingly.

(5) The UK Government would open a dialogue with the Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies about introducing mandatory public disclosure rules for their registered and publicly listed extractive companies, and if necessary after a reasonable passage of time introduce legislation requiring them to implement such rules.

Why is it important? – MPs are required to publish the details of their financial interests in order to make transparent anything that “might reasonably be thought by others to influence a Members’ actions, speeches or votes in Parliament, or actions taken in his or her capacity as a Member of Parliament”. This transparency is intended to protect against conflicts of interest or undue influence that might result in members putting their private interests over those of the public’s.

At the moment the Commons' Register of Members' Financial Interests (RMFI) is not collected, stored or published as structured open data. This means:

• Members are at increased risk of technical non-compliance with the rules e.g. forgetting to include the dates for outside employment, because the process by which this information is collected allows them to omit these details.
• It is extremely time-consuming to collect and analyse potential conflicts of interest or undue influence, which is the intention of the register. For example, it could take weeks to collect and analyse trips paid for by a secretive lobby group connected to a hostile government over time. If this was collected, stored and published as structured open data this kind of question should be answerable in seconds.
• It is extremely time-consuming for constituents to understand anything regarding the aggregation of their MPs’ financial interests. This inhibits constituents’ ability to hold their MP to account. For example, it could take weeks for a constituent to collect and tally how much time their MP spends on outside employment, or how much they earn from second jobs. If this was collected, stored and published as structured open data this kind of question should be answerable in seconds.

How would it work? – This is about improving Parliament’s processes and data storage and would require no legislative change. Broadly, it would involve:

• Mapping-out a data model for the RMFI and checking it with the relevant clerks to ensure it accurately reflects the Code of Conduct for MPs
• Consulting users to understand their needs when entering MPs’ financial interests
• Developing and user-testing the new system
• Providing a programme of advice and guidance ahead of a full roll-out
• Full roll-out
• Post-implementation evaluation and improvement

This idea was developed by participants in Huddersfield workshop at #NotWestminster.

What is the idea?

- Create tools for local councils to produce budgets in transparent and comparable manner.
- More accessible budget (visualisations, jargon-less language)
- Budget meetings (in person meetings to explain budgets to citizens)
- Independent impact assessments, scrutiny reports

Why is it important?

It is hard to understand and engage with local council budgets. They are on pdfs, not in comparable across councils, there is little information about how budgets are spent, or where the money is dedicated (other than top line categories).

This idea was develope by participants in the Sheffield workshop.

What is the idea?

-> The classification of documents to restrict FOI publication must have detailed justifications.

Why is it important?

It needs to be easier for officials to publish information when requested without Ministerial interference. The aim is to reduce the scope for over-controlling the flow of data/information for political reasons, to the public sphere.

This idea was developed by participants in the Manchester workshop

What is the idea?

-> Extend FOI rules to suppliers of procurement tenders.
-> Extend the model transparency clause

Why is it important?

It will make private contractors which deliver public services more accountable If private contractors are receiving public money for public service provision, they should be subject to the same transparency rules as a publically run public service. Transparency rules should be an obligation as part of their contracts and be a condition that private companies must accept.

This idea was developed by participants in the Bristol workshop.

What is the idea?

-> Produce national budget-spend audit trail to follow the money spent by government
-> All budget spending should have a unique identifier that is transmitted to all objects relating to spending so that a complete trail can be made between budget commitment and amount spent.

Why is it important?

Government promises it spends millions on certain projects, but there is no way to follow this. This can help to show where national government projects are fed (or not) through to local government for implementation/spending of this money.

This idea was developed by participants in the Bristol workshop.

What is the idea?

Secure the publication of a register of all research being commissioned (internally or externally) by local/national government

Why is it important?

Reduce overlap, let the public decide what is valuable, hold the administration to account for research commissioned, and to it’s (in)action.

This idea was developed by participants in the Sheffield workshop.

What is the idea?

-> Community cohesion plans organised by local community/ies

Enable people to own the agenda and the issues that affect them. They need to be meaningfully engaged and given the tools that can empower them so that they can participate and solve problems that affect them (in a bottom-up approach rather than top-down).

Why is it important?

Need to avoid top-down problem-solving of community problems, and instead instigate a system where local communities are empowered.

A critical requirement to ensure joined-up thinking and reduce wasting valuable time of volunteers.