Shining a light on lobbying: Open Access expands to Scotland

For a number of years, Open Access has provided an accessible platform to find out about UK ministerial meetings and make Freedom of Information requests about those interactions. As of 3rd February 2025, thanks to the generous support of the Waverley Street Foundation, it now also includes Scottish lobbying data alongside UK ministerial meetings, making it easier than ever to track political influence across Britain. To share this updated functionality, we were delighted to host an event at the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) conference in Edinburgh – The Gathering. We invited friends from investigative news outlet The Ferret and environmental justice campaigners Friends of the Earth Scotland to join us in presenting a session about why lobbying transparency matters, what transparency datasets can tell us, and how that data can inform campaigns and advocacy work.

Lobbying plays an important role in democratic decision-making. It is a way for organisations to explain how policies affect their interests - from trade unions advocating for workers' rights, environmental NGOs fighting for nature or businesses explaining how they might be able to help deliver policy outcomes, or where these might hinder their financial health. When done transparently, lobbying empowers the public and in so doing provides them with the motivation to respect the policy making process and have trust in decision makers.    

However, the opposite is equally true. If lobbying happens behind closed doors, or when those with the deepest pockets are perceived to have privileged access to decision makers, and if policy is based on a narrow set of opinions, then not only is public trust eroded but policies risk serving special interests rather than the common good.  

Open Access works to bring lobbying out of the shadows and shine a light on political decision making. The platform transforms complex lobbying data into easy-to-use insights, bringing together Whitehall ministerial meetings data and the Scottish lobbying register data, which includes interactions with Ministers, MSPs, Special Advisors and senior officials. The new update harnesses AI technology to make this information even more accessible, allowing users to filter meetings by four key topics: climate, health, defence, and housing.  

Using the newly included data, and subject filters feature, we wanted to see what these new tools could tell us. Our paper, Power Politics, provides for the first time emerging patterns of climate lobbying in Scotland, the key insights of which we presented at The Gathering. 

• 1 in 10 UK and Scottish ministerial engagements are with just 10 companies, all of whom are either fossil fuel majors, or involved in energy generation or transmission. 

• Two in every three recorded lobbying engagements in Scotland were with companies, trade associations and consultant lobbyists.   

• Energy companies use multiple avenues of lobbying access - for example Shell lobbies directly; indirectly through trade associations, like Energy UK; and with the assistance of consultant lobbyists like True North (Scotland).   

• Almost one in five meetings with Scottish ministers were with civil society organisations, compared to only one in ten in Whitehall.  

This privileged access means that there is a risk that some voices are heard more loudly than others not because they have the better evidence or argument, but because they can afford to talk more frequently and in greater detail to policy makers.  

Delving deeper, we examined how these meetings were described. We tested the descriptions of meetings against key narratives from the fossil fuel playbook that as developed by InfluenceMap in their analysis of how energy companies deploy messaging in public and in private. We discovered that fossil fuel lobbyists are using key narratives to make the case for delaying more radical policy.  These include: 

• the need for an energy mix to provide energy security, and messaging about the benefits of the UK not being dependent on imported oil and gas 

• comments around local employment and the provision of long-term jobs 

• lower bills as a consequence of domestic oil and gas provision  

• benefits of yet-to-be proven technology as a net zero solution, such as carbon capture and storage 

Our findings align with Friends of the Earth Scotland own independent analysis of Scottish lobbying detailed in their Polluted Politics report, and campaigning around the development of a new Peterhead power station.   

In sharing these insights, we hope to improve understanding of how political influence can be monitored in the UK – lobbying transparency isn’t just about collecting data but also understanding what it means and why. When we reveal that certain voices dominate policy discussions, it can create pressure for change, encouraging decision-makers to seek out diverse perspectives and challenge existing power structures. 

It’s time for democratic institutions across the UK to embrace lobbying transparency measures and ensure they are as effective as possible in bringing light to the sometimes-murky world of political influencing.  

In the meantime, we hope organisations, journalists, campaigners and more delve into Open Access, using it to increase transparency and accountability over lobbying in the UK. We look forward to you sharing your discoveries.