Committee and plenary meeting information
Parliament should create a data pipeline that results in an accurate and up-to-date database containing information about every parliamentary meeting.
User stories
As a citizen, I would like to be able to quickly see the number of committee meetings that have been cancelled or rescheduled, in order to find out how many of a committee I care about's meetings have been effected.
As an MP, I would like to have access to an official and up to the minute schedule that showed me all updates made to meeting venues and schedules, in order to more effectively plan my parliamentary work.
As a journalist, I would like to be able to see how many of the meetings in parliament ended on time for a specific period, in order to assess whether changes to the way parliamentary meetings were organised during COVID-19 had any effect on attendance.
Why this is important
Making official, detailed meeting information publicly available is critical for measuring the impacts of scheduling on the functioning and effectiveness of parliament.
How things currently stand
Currently, Parliament publishes its committee meeting schedules as a document (.pdf) on a daily basis. While these documents are of use to MPs who are looking to find out where and when their meetings are taking place, this schedule does not make it simple to leverage long term schedule and meeting information as data for analysis and oversight. The schedule includes scheduled start and end times for each meeting, but does not mention a venue. That source also cannot tell you when a meeting actually started, if the venue changed or whether the meeting was rescheduled or cancelled.
What this recommendation will enable
- Access to an official, up-to-date database of parliamentary meeting information
- Increased innovation in the parliamentary technology space
- The ability to link meeting schedules with other metrics to tell a more complete story of the challenges and successes within parliament.
- The ability to more easily measure the impact of parliamentary initiatives and interventions on the scheduling of meetings.
Progress made so far
ParliMeter has not yet approached Parliament about the potential for implementing this recommendation.
Have your say
If you have any questions about this recommendation or if you have information you feel could contribute towards its progress, please submit your comment here.
Make your voice heard
Every recommendation starts with a question
This list is always evolving to reflect the expressed needs of ParliMeter's users. If you have a question or an idea that you think requires intervention to implement, please tell us about it!
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