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mysociety / whatdotheyknow-theme

The Alaveteli theme for WhatDoTheyKnow (UK)
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/
MIT License
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Consider adding the Catapult Network to WDTK #1113

Open sallytay opened 2 years ago

sallytay commented 2 years ago

As agreed at Community and Activism meeting on 2002-03-29

Adding the catapult network [catapult.org.uk] of companies to the database

They would meet our criteria for listing if we consider that they do distribute substantial public funds then that is a criteria we've used for listing Action: Needs research as to how their funding is received / distributed

sallytay commented 2 years ago

Further information has been provided by the user who requested for these to be added.

They receive in excess of £100m of taxpayers' funds every year, much of which is then distributed to research projects. Certainly ought to be in scope of FOI requests. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/975595/catapult-network-review-april-2021.pdf

It appears that for most listed projects the core funding that is provided by the government makes up over 50% of the total funding

RichardTaylor commented 2 years ago 
It appears that for most listed projects

It's not clear what this refers to. Perhaps it refers to the list of Catapults listed in the appendix of the linked document.

There is an example in the document of one catapult distributing public money:

Connected Places Catapult delivers the Transport Technology Research Innovation Grants (T-TRIG) programme for the UK’s Department for Transport (DfT), shaping innovation challenges and allocating grant funding to accelerate commercialisation projects across transport technology. Organisations are awarded £30k to undertake six-month R&D projects to prove technological concepts.

We could list the Connected Places Catapult on the basis of that under the https://wdtkwiki.mysociety.org/wiki/Listing_bodies_not_subject_to_FOI

RichardTaylor commented 2 years ago

Connected Places Catapult is a company limited by guarantee, registered in England under company number 11837978 Source: https://cp.catapult.org.uk/

Companies House listing: https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/11837978

The latest accounts state: "The company is a private company limited by guarantee and consequently does not have share capital".

It does have members. The articles of association state "Membership is solely open to Directors of the Company". A resolution has been signed by two members who appear to be individuals and not public bodies.

The latest accounts suggest there are five wholly owned subsidiaries:

These companies do not appear to be subject to FOI via Section 6 of the Freedom of Information Act (Publicly-owned companies), though they may be if the members are "acting on behalf of a relevant public authority".

RichardTaylor commented 2 years ago

What best serves our users?

Do we have examples of requests made to public bodies such as Innovate UK and Government Departments which provide funding to the Catapults where they say they don't hold the information sought?