WriteToThem.com Zeitgeist 2006
WriteToThem sent a total of 87,503 messages to elected representatives (and Lords) in the year 2006.
This included 62,033 messages to MPs, and 25,468 to other elected representatives.
40,232 people answered our feedback survey about communicating with their MP in 2006.
The survey asked whether people had had a reply (not just an acknowledgement) from their representative. (Actually the text of the survey changed slightly in both March and April 2006. You can see in our source code repository when this happened, and what changed).
People were surveyed initially after 2 weeks, and if they didn't answer, were surveyed again after 3 weeks. Because of this, and because of the way different people interpret the survey, you should interpret the WriteToThem Zeitgeist figures with caution.
Also, comparing percentage response rates can be misleading: if you are planning to do so, please read more about that on our blog.
Journalists: Please feel free to use the data on these pages, but if you do you must cite WriteToThem.com in the body of your articles as the source of any analysis or data you get from this site. Statistics without a referenced source are dangerous, so please do this.
Note: While some MPs are very slow at responding to constituents mail, that doesn't mean they aren't otherwise active in or around Parliament on behalf of their constituents. You can see MPs voting record, committee memberships and interests on their TheyWorkForYou page.
- What do people write letters about?
- Did MPs do better this year or last year?
- Do only the better off use WriteToThem?
- Which elected body has the most responsive members?
- Which party has the most responsive MPs?
What do people write letters about?
We don’t look at your messages (see our privacy policy for details), so we don’t know what you write about. However, we do run standard web statistics software, so we know which sites people click through to WriteToThem from. Here is the top campaign website which linked to WriteToThem in each month.
| Month in 2006 | Top campaign site linking to WriteToThem |
|---|---|
| January | Smokefree ACTION |
| February | National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education |
| March | Save Parliament |
| April | Pressureworks (Christian Aid) |
| May | Money Saving Expert forums |
| June | PistonHeads – Speed Matters |
| July | Voice4SportsSW |
| August | Save the Children (ceasefire day) |
| September | Traidcraft InterActive |
| October | Save our Waterways |
| November | Immigrationboards.com |
| December | anti-slavery |
Where a site was top for more than one month, it has been excluded from the later months for variety. Non-campaigning sites, such as search engines, directories, TheyWorkForYou, Public Whip, and news stories about mySociety, have been excluded from this table. Most of the campaigns were short term, and their specific page no longer works, so we have instead linked to the top level of the campaigning site.
Did MPs do better this year or last year?
Overall, according to our users’ survey responses, MPs were 2% less responsive to constituents’ messages sent via WriteToThem in 2006 compared to in 2005. This is partly because of a sharp drop in the number of MPs getting those near-perfect scores of 90% or higher responsiveness. On the other hand, far fewer MPs have woeful response rates less than 20%. More details in the full MP Responsiveness League Table.
Do only the better off use WriteToThem?
Sometimes people have told us that websites like WriteToThem only help people who are already better off in society, because they have better access to computers. One of our volunteers, Sam Smith, has tested this and found that people from deprived areas use WriteToThem as much or more than people from better off areas. You can read his full paper on the subject here.
Deprivation Measure of Users of WriteToThem.com in England (PDF) - Sam Smith, April 2007