About & Methodology

Our Mission

Local Democracy UK promotes transparency in local government by making councillor attendance records easily accessible to the public.

We believe that citizens have the right to know how their elected representatives participate in local democracy. By presenting attendance data in a clear, searchable format, we aim to support informed civic engagement and accountability.

Data Sources

All attendance data is collected from official council websites. The majority of UK local councils use the Modern.Gov (ModGov) system to publish their meeting records, agendas, and attendance information.

ModGov is a widely-used platform that councils use to manage their democratic processes. It provides public access to:

• Meeting schedules and agendas
• Committee memberships
• Councillor profiles
• Attendance records for each meeting
• Voting records (where available)

We scrape this publicly available information and present it in a unified, comparable format across all councils.

Methodology

Data Collection

Our automated scraper visits each council's ModGov website and extracts attendance data from the member attendance pages. This includes:

• Councillor names and party affiliations
• Number of meetings expected to attend
• Number of meetings actually attended
• Attendance percentages

Attendance Calculation

The attendance percentage shown is calculated as:

"Meetings Expected" refers to meetings where a councillor was required to attend based on their committee memberships. This figure comes directly from the council's own records and excludes meetings they were not scheduled to attend.

Time Periods

Where available, we provide attendance data for multiple time periods:

• 1 Year - Attendance over the past 12 months
• 2 Years - Attendance over the past 24 months
• 3 Years - Attendance over the past 36 months

This allows you to see both recent performance and longer-term trends.

Rankings

Council rankings are based on the overall attendance rate, calculated by dividing the total meetings attended by all councillors by the total meetings expected across the council. This gives more weight to councillors with more meetings.

Individual councillor rankings within a council are based on their personal attendance percentage.

Limitations

While we strive for accuracy, there are some important limitations to understand:

• Approved absences - The data doesn't distinguish between unexplained absences and approved leave (illness, parental leave, etc.)
• Council variations - Different councils may record attendance slightly differently, making direct comparisons imperfect
• Data freshness - There may be a delay between meetings occurring and data appearing on council websites
• Meeting types - Some councils include informal meetings while others only count formal committee meetings
• New councillors - Recently elected councillors may have limited data, making percentages less representative

Data Usage

The data presented on this site is collected from publicly available sources. You are welcome to use this information for:

• Research and academic purposes
• Journalism and reporting
• Civic engagement and advocacy
• Personal interest in local democracy

If you use our data in publications or research, we appreciate attribution to Local Democracy UK.

Disclaimer

While we make every effort to ensure accuracy, we cannot guarantee that all data is correct or up-to-date. If you notice any errors, please let us know.