Using crowdsourcing to make lobbying more transparent in the French National Assembly

Outcomes

This project lifted the lid on lobbying within the French National Assembly. The team created a visualisation that presented the data in a way users could easily understand – as you will see below. 

The project highlighted the inadequacy of the so-called ‘transparency safeguards’ that existed in the National Assembly. It showed that in 62 percent of reports to the Assembly there was no list of persons who had been met or interviewed in the formal hearings.  This means that the footprint of influence on the legislative process is unclear.

The number of organisations sending representatives to represent their interests, uncovered by the work of Regards Citoyens and Transparence International France, was 4635, 40 times greater than the 124 found in the official register. Since this information came from only 38% of reports with an appendix that gave names of individuals, the true figure is clearly even higher.
Moreover, the results indicate a gender imbalance amongst individuals that meet with Assembly members. Of the 15,447 individuals recorded in the formal hearings, only 24% were women (compared to 51.4% of the population). The only policy topic which provided an exception to this was (perhaps unsurprisingly!) gender issues, where women constituted 57% of those participating in the hearings.

Another valuable outcome of the project was that it reveals who is most listened to by National Assembly members overall. The data, in Figure 1 below, indicated that public sector organisations accounted for 48.3% of those participating in formal meetings held by Assembly members. (These public sector organisations only represent 20% of the organisations in the Register of the National Assembly).  Member organisations had the second highest frequency of formal meetings with Assembly members (20.9% of meetings), then private sector organisations (16.4%) and then civil society organisations (with only 7 % of formal meetings).

Figure 1 - Distribution of the 9,302 meetings with National Assembly Members by organisation

Source - http://www.regardscitoyens.org/transparence-france/etude-lobbying/

The results show a very low number of formal meetings with professional lobbyists and think-tanks, both accounting for only 1% of known formal meetings. Nevertheless, these organisations are believed to exercise a significant influence in the National Assembly. This indicates that influence comes from far more sources than simply formal meetings and hearings. This suggests a need for improved recording. Members’ records should include a list of people with which they have meet informally as well as the traditional formal hearings – without this, the records of the lobbying process will be incomplete and suspicions of the process are likely to remain.

Figure 2 - Distribution within environment sector from 652 meetings