SocietyWorks

FOIWorks

Developed with Hackney Council in 2018, FOIWorks is an open-source user-needs focused front-end solution for taking Freedom of Information requests from citizens - streamlining authorities’ FOI workflows by suggesting public records from previous case responses and reducing the amount of correspondence. Integrates with information management services like Infreemation and iCasework.

Features

• Simple interface with a short workflow for managing FOI requests
• Seamless integration with information management systems such as iCasework
• Intelligent suggestions redirect citizens to existing material before requesting
• Disclosure log integration automatically resurfaces past responses as suggestions
• Curated links surface information already available as suggestions
• Requests get sent straight through to your case management system
• Citizens receive a reference number immediately
• Analytics provide feedback on which suggestions are most effective
• Option to present current compliance rate to citizens
• Proudly Open Source software, following the Government Digital Service Standard

Benefits

• Builds trust, improves quality of requests and reduces administrative burden
• Works with your existing case management systems through API integration
• Easier citizen access to Section 21 “information already available” requests
• Get more value out of your FOI officers’ past work
• Hackney reduced correspondence per request by 10% through intelligent suggestions
• Case management system integration eliminates re-keying
• FOI case reference number reduces workload where intervention is required
• Becomes more effective as responses are added to disclosure log
• Analytics show which suggestions reduce the administrative burden per request
• Built to meet the GDS Standard, including WCAG AA accessibility

£11,500 an instance a year

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Skills Framework for the Information Age rate card

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

Request an accessible format

If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at enquiries@societyworks.org. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 13

Service ID

826507447661592

Contact

Angela Dixon
020 3287 9859
enquiries@societyworks.org

Service scope

• Software add-on or extension: Yes, but can also be used as a standalone service
• What software services is the service an extension to: It integrates out of the box with the Infreemation and iCasework FOI case management systems, but can be extended to work with other systems, including the open source correspondence tool created by the Ministry of Justice, for an end-to-end open source service.
• Cloud deployment model: Public cloud
• Service constraints: No
• System requirements: None

User support

• Email or online ticketing support: Email or online ticketing
• Support response times: Within normal working hours our official response rate is 4 hours
• User can manage status and priority of support tickets: No
• Phone support: No
• Web chat support: No
• Onsite support: Yes, at extra cost
• Support levels: We offer a single support level as defined in our SLA. Critical: requests for errors resulting in non-availability of the service, e.g. the URL returns an HTTP error code 500. Resolution within three days. Non-Critical: minor bugs that do not substantially affect the service, or minor feature/content adjustment requests. To be mutually agreed.
• Support available to third parties: Yes

Onboarding and offboarding

• Getting started: We will contact you to make sure we have a full understanding of your needs, and tailor our approach to your requirements, with appropriate user documentation and training.
• Service documentation: Yes
• Documentation formats: HTML
• End-of-contract data extraction: At the termination of the agreement the customer may choose to issue a transfer request which grants the customer sufficient data and rights to operate the service themselves or with a third party. This will be provided in the most appropriate format for ongoing usage.
• End-of-contract process: Either party can terminate service by giving notice to the other that service will cease at the end of the day before an anniversary of the agreement start date. Any notice must be given no less than six (6) weeks before an anniversary of the agreement start date. At the termination of the agreement the customer may choose to issue a transfer request which grants the customer sufficient data and rights to operate the service themselves or with a third party.

Using the service

• Web browser interface: Yes
• Supported browsers:
  • Internet Explorer 11
  • Microsoft Edge
  • Firefox
  • Chrome
  • Safari
  • Opera
• Application to install: No
• Designed for use on mobile devices: Yes
• Differences between the mobile and desktop service: The service is fully responsive thus apart from layout there are no differences in functionality.
• Service interface: No
• User support accessibility: WCAG 2.1 AA or EN 301 549
• API: Yes
• What users can and can't do using the API: Our services can send and receive data from and to your systems by connecting to your systems’ API key
• API documentation: Yes
• API documentation formats:
  • HTML
  • PDF
• API sandbox or test environment: Yes
• Customisation available: Yes
• Description of customisation: Buyers can customise the look and feel of our service to meet their brand guidelines and can also customise the workflow and the reporting categories through the admin interface.

Scaling

• Independence of resources: Monitoring is in place to ensure that if there is any abnormal load or behaviour on any account a range of measures can be implemented to ensure service levels. These include but are not limited to the ability to rate limit, block or ban traffic sources.

Analytics

• Service usage metrics: Yes
• Metrics types: We provide metrics on service usage, and analytics on which suggestions from the disclosure log or curated suggestions are most effective in preventing unnecessary requests.
• Reporting types: Real-time dashboards

Resellers

• Supplier type: Not a reseller

Staff security

• Staff security clearance: Staff screening not performed
• Government security clearance: None

Asset protection

• Knowledge of data storage and processing locations: Yes
• Data storage and processing locations:
  • United Kingdom
  • Other locations
• User control over data storage and processing locations: Yes
• Datacentre security standards: Managed by a third party
• Penetration testing frequency: At least once a year
• Penetration testing approach: ‘IT Health Check’ performed by a Tigerscheme qualified provider or a CREST-approved service provider
• Protecting data at rest: Physical access control, complying with another standard
• Data sanitisation process: Yes
• Data sanitisation type: Explicit overwriting of storage before reallocation
• Equipment disposal approach: A third-party destruction service

Data importing and exporting

• Data export approach: Export of analytics data to CSV is supported.
• Data export formats: CSV
• Data import formats: CSV

Data-in-transit protection

• Data protection between buyer and supplier networks: TLS (version 1.2 or above)
• Data protection within supplier network: TLS (version 1.2 or above)

Availability and resilience

• Guaranteed availability: Our service levels etc are available under the 'Service Level Agreement' heading of the Terms & Conditions document attached.
• Approach to resilience: Our systems are distributed between multiple data centres for redundancy. Back-end database systems have streaming replication to hot standby instances and back-end file storage is similarly redundant. Systems are monitored for availability, performance and capacity from a remote location 24/7/365.
• Outage reporting: Services outages are reported via email and major issues are covered on the SocietyWorks blog.

Identity and authentication

• User authentication needed: Yes
• User authentication: Username or password
• Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels: Identity federation with existing provider
• Access restriction testing frequency: At least once a year
• Management access authentication: Identity federation with existing provider (for example Google Apps)

Audit information for users

• Access to user activity audit information: Users contact the support team to get audit information
• How long user audit data is stored for: User-defined
• Access to supplier activity audit information: Users contact the support team to get audit information
• How long supplier audit data is stored for: User-defined
• How long system logs are stored for: Between 1 month and 6 months

Standards and certifications

• ISO/IEC 27001 certification: No
• ISO 28000:2007 certification: No
• CSA STAR certification: No
• PCI certification: No
• Cyber essentials: Yes
• Cyber essentials plus: No
• Other security certifications: Yes
• Any other security certifications: Cyber Essentials https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/cyberessentials/search (search for SocietyWorks)

Security governance

• Named board-level person responsible for service security: Yes
• Security governance certified: No
• Security governance approach: SocietyWorks is a wholly owned subsidiary of mySociety. Information is key to mySociety's continuing business. The management of it is the responsibility of all users of the systems which mySociety provide. All information must only be used for its intended and stated purpose. Information must be protected from its creation, during its useful life, and through its authorised disposal. All information should be maintained in a secure and reliable manner.; ; Compliance with applicable legislation is paramount, and all information must be processed, maintained and disposed of in accordance with the laws relevant to the jurisdiction.
• Information security policies and processes: We maintain a Security Management Plan that covers our approach to security. This can be provided on request.

Operational security

• Configuration and change management standard: Supplier-defined controls
• Configuration and change management approach: We operate automated configuration management of our systems using Puppet. This ensures that all our systems are kept in a consistent state. The configuration is kept in version control.; ; Configuration and code changes are subject to peer-review via pull requests and reviews against our git repositories. Application code is subject to automated testing and tests must pass before merge and deployment takes place.
• Vulnerability management type: Supplier-defined controls
• Vulnerability management approach: For core system software we run daily checks for security updates and these are usually applied within 1 business day. We have procedures in place for managing emergency patching for remotely exploitable zero-day vulnerabilities should they be discovered in any system components.; ; Where appropriate automated monitoring of codebase dependencies is enabled.
• Protective monitoring type: Supplier-defined controls
• Protective monitoring approach: We check daily for security patches/updates and apply these.; ; We have real-time monitoring that detects common attacks and automatically blocks suspicious activity.; ; We monitor our SSL certificates and have a fully automated system for renewals.
• Incident management type: Supplier-defined controls
• Incident management approach: We record logs for major incidents to capture actions and details and then raise appropriate issue tickets once root cause is established or to implement changes based on lessons-learned.; ; Users can report issues via the usual support channels and we provide incident reports via our blog.

Secure development

• Approach to secure software development best practice: Independent review of processes (for example CESG CPA Build Standard, ISO/IEC 27034, ISO/IEC 27001 or CSA CCM v3.0)

Public sector networks

• Connection to public sector networks: No

Social Value

• Fighting climate change:

  Fighting climate change

  SocietyWorks is a wholly owned subsidiary of the charity mySociety, together they form a unique not for profit group providing public benefit through the development of digital civic services. SocietyWorks' profits are donated to mySociety as unrestricted funds supporting technology, research and data that is used openly and for free to empower citizens to engage more actively within society.; ; By supporting our commercial work on SocietyWorks, councils are able to support mySociety’s programme of work accelerating the local response in the UK to the climate emergency. mySociety created the digital platform to support the UK's national Climate Assembly, and more recently has been working with Climate Emergency UK to build the Climate Action Plans Explorer and Climate Action Plan Scorecards, both of which help citizens and councils to more easily access and understand the response in their local area to the climate crisis, and compare what other councils with a similar responsibility are doing.
• Equal opportunity:

  Equal opportunity

  SocietyWorks is a wholly owned subsidiary of the charity mySociety, together they form a unique not for profit group providing public benefit through the development of digital civic services. SocietyWorks' profits are donated to mySociety as unrestricted funds supporting technology, research and data that is used openly and for free to empower citizens to engage more actively within society. ; ; By supporting our commercial work on SocietyWorks, councils are supporting mySociety’s transparency, democracy and community projects.

Pricing

• Price: £11,500 an instance a year
• Discount for educational organisations: No
• Free trial available: No

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Skills Framework for the Information Age rate card

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

Request an accessible format

If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at enquiries@societyworks.org. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.