Campaigns Total – No 10 and Office of Deputy PM

Total number of actions received between May 1st 2010 and May 1st 2011:
Number 10 – 109,674
Office of Deputy Prime Minister – 17,315
Number 10 was unable to provide a breakdown of how the actions were received.
For the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister the totals were as follows;
Number of letters: 2,867
Number of emails: 14,448
Biggest campaign:
Number 10 – Tearfund – Millennium Development Goals – 28,001
Office of Deputy Prime Minister – Unknown source – News International – 12,077
Breakdowns by topic and organisation:
Number 10
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Office of Deputy Prime Minister
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Both responses included the caveat that information collected about a campaign will be dependent on the judgement of a member of a staff. Information taken from Freedom of Information request returned on 3 June 2011 and is adapted from information provided by Office of Deputy Prime Minister and Number 10. The spreadsheets of information can be downloaded for No 10 and Office of Deputy PM.
More about the ‘Campaigns Total’ project here. Be first to get the information from other departments by subscribing to the site using the box on the right, adding http://thoughtfulcampaigner.org/ to your RSS feed or following me on twitter (@mrtombaker)

Campaign Totals – DECC

Total number of actions received between May 1st 2010 and May 1st 2011: 136,819

Number of letters: 256
Number of postcards: 18,504
Number of petition signatures: 581
Number of emails: 117,478
Biggest campaign: Avvaz.Org – Europe: trees not Tricks / UK must lead on forests – 24,286 emails (although its interesting to note that the Avvaz website indicates that over 76,000 messages were sent. UPDATE – apparently that’s for the whole of the EU not simply the UK)
Breakdown by topic and organisation:

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The breakdown has been adapted from multiple spreadsheets received from DECC, to download all the information provided click here. To view the breakdown spreadsheet in google docs click here.
Information taken from Freedom of Information request returned on 2 June 2011 and is adapted from a list of information provided by Department of Energy and Climate Change.
More about the ‘Campaigns Total’ project here. Be first to get the information from other departments by subscribing to the site using the box on the right, adding http://thoughtfulcampaigner.org/ to your RSS feed or following me on twitter (@mrtombaker)

Campaign Totals – Department for Transport

Total number of actions received between May 1st 2010 and May 1st 2011: 19,240 (although in the response the Department said approx. 18,000)

Number of letters: 5,025
Number of petition signatures: 1,200
Number of emails: 13,015
Biggest campaign: Greenpeace – Stop fuels from oil sands being used in the EU – 5,650 emails
The Department of Transport was keen to stress in its reply that ‘no complete record is kept centrally of all the campaign correspondence received by the Department for Transport’ going on to state that ‘furthermore, it may well be that, where multiple copies of the same letter/e-mail were received from multiple recipients, not every copy will have been retained‘.
Concluding that ‘from adding up the figures for each of the individual campaigns (please be advised that this is not necessarily an exhaustive list), it is possible to calculate that at least 18,000 items of campaign correspondence were received in total during the year in question. However, the actual total is likely to have been higher’ which it is because my calculations show they listed over 19,000 actions.
Breakdown by topic and organisation:
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View the spreadsheet in google docs here. Information taken from Freedom of Information request returned on 27 May 2011 and is adapted from a list of information provided by Department of Transport.
More about the ‘Campaigns Total’ project here. Be first to get the information from other departments by subscribing to the site using the box on the right, adding http://thoughtfulcampaigner.org/ to your RSS feed or following me on twitter (@mrtombaker)

Campaign Totals – Department of Health

Total number of actions received between May 1st 2010 and May 1st 2011: 18,704

Number of postal correspondence: 15,201
Number of emails: 3,508
Biggest campaign: Association of Convenience Shops (ACS) – Tobacco Display Ban – 6,684
The Department of Health indicated that ‘to identify which items of postal correspondence were letters and postcards would incur disproportionate cost
Breakdown by topic and organisation:
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View the spreadsheet in google docs here. Information taken from Freedom of Information request returned on 27 May 2011 and is presented as it was received from Department of Health.
More about the ‘Campaigns Total’ project here.
Be first to get the information from other departments by subscribing to the site using the box on the right, adding http://thoughtfulcampaigner.org/ to your RSS feed or following me on twitter (@mrtombaker)

Campaign Totals – Home Office

Total number of actions received between May 1st 2010 and May 1st 2011: 8,402
Number of postcards: 613
Number of emails: 7,789
Biggest campaign: Change.Org – Protesting about a loophole in the law allowing for importation of juvenile primates – 805
The Identity and Passport Service also received 253 actions in the year. No figures were provided by UK Border Agency
Breakdown by topic and organisation:
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View the spreadsheet in google docs here. Information taken from Freedom of Information request returned on 26 May 2011 and is presented as it was received from Home Office.
More about the ‘Campaigns Total’ project here.
Be first to get the information from other departments by subscribing to the site using the box on the right, adding http://thoughtfulcampaigner.org/ to your RSS feed or following me on twitter (@mrtombaker)

Campaign Totals – Department of Education


Total number of actions received between May 1st 2010 and May 1st 2011: 4,718
Number of letters: 900
Number of emails: 3,818
Biggest campaign: Sustainable Schools Alliance – Campaign asking the Government to support schools and put sustainability teaching at the heart of its education strategy – 1,234
Breakdown by topic and organisation:
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View the spreadsheet in google docs here. Information taken from Freedom of Information request returned on 26 May 2011 and is presented as it was received from Department of Education.
More about the ‘Campaigns Total’ project here.
Be first to get the information from other departments by subscribing to the site using the box on the right, adding http://thoughtfulcampaigner.org/ to your RSS feed or following me on twitter (@mrtombaker)

Campaign Totals – Export Credit Guarantee Department

Total number of actions received between May 1st 2010 and May 1st 2011: 1,208
Number of emails: 1,208
Biggest campaign: Jubilee Debt Campaign – Reform of the Export Credits Guarantee Department – 1,208
The Export Credits Guarantee Department indicated that it ‘does not hold information relating to correspondence received by methods of delivery other than email‘.
Information taken from Freedom of Information request returned on 26 May 2011 and is presented as it was received from Export Credits Guarantee Department. More about the ‘Campaigns Total’ project here.
Be first to get the information from other departments by subscribing to the site using the box on the right, adding http://thoughtfulcampaigner.org/ to your RSS feed or following me on twitter (@mrtombaker)

Campaign Totals – DFID

Total number of actions received between May 1st 2010 and May 1st 2011: 142,636

Number of postcards: 76,221
Number of letters: 622
Number of petition signatures: 38,526
Number of emails: 27,267
Biggest campaign: Water Aid – Talk Taps & Toilets – G8 – 38,416
Breakdown by topic and organisation:
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View the spreadsheet in google docs here. Information taken from Freedom of Information request returned on 17 May 2011 and is presented as it was received from DFID.
More about the ‘Campaigns Total’ project here.
Be first to get the information from other departments by subscribing to the site using the box on the right, adding http://thoughtfulcampaigner.org/ to your RSS feed or following me on twitter (@mrtombaker)

Campaign Totals – DEFRA

Total number of actions received between May 1st 2010 and May 1st 2011: 201,805
Number of postcards/letters: 92,310
Number of emails: 109,495
Biggest campaign: RSPB – Don’t cut the life from our countryside – 53,147
Breakdown by campaign:
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View the spreadsheet in google docs here. Information from Freedom of Information requested received on 10 May 2011, and is presented as received from DEFRA with one amendment (which was to link SustainWeb to the Jim’ll Fix It For Fish? campaign, the original information had this down as None). More about the ‘Campaigns Total’ project here.
Be first to get the information from other departments by subscribing to the site using the box on the right, adding http://thoughtfulcampaigner.org/ to your RSS feed or following me on twitter (@mrtombaker)

Introducing 'Campaign Totals 2011'

For the last few years I’ve been using Freedom of Information to find out how many campaign actions different government departments receive each year.
I’ve found that its an excellent way of benchmarking the campaigns that I’ve been involved in against others and getting an indication of the volume of actions and issues different government departments are having to respond to.
This year, I’ve requested the information from all Whitehall departments covering the period 1st May 2010 to 1st May 2011. I’ll be publishing the responses as I get them starting with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA).
I’ve asked each department to provide the following;

  1. The total number of campaign letters, postcards and emails that appeared to be part of a coordinated campaign you received from 1st May 2010 to 1st May 2011
  2. The breakdown of these numbers by delivery method (letter, postcard and email).
  3. A breakdown by topic and/or organisation(s) where you received more than 500 items of correspondence (through any delivery method) that appeared to be part of a coordinated campaign in the period defined above.

When I’ve got responses from all 20+ departments I plan to do some analysis which I hope will give a fascinating picture of campaigning to the UK government in the last 12 months. It’ll provide a league table of which campaigns have generated the most actions, what issues have captured the publics support and which are the most targeted departments.