What do the scores mean?
Availability
Availability is defined as how ‘available’ your MP is – how easy it is to get in touch with him/her.
Our availability score is calculated from collecting social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and your MP’s personal website) and service centre information (Google Maps, Facebook Page) of your MP, a maximum of 10 points will be given under Availability.
The weightage and criteria for scoring is as follows:
| Field | Weightage | Criteria | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 0 – Unavailable/Unknown, 1 – Available but Inactive or Responds lower than Normal, 1.5 – Normal, Responds 75% within a week 2 – Excellent, Responds 90% within an hour |
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| 1 | 0 – Unavailable/Unknown, 0.5 – Available but Inactive 1 – Normal and Active (1 post in last month for Twitter and Instagram, Updated at least once a year for website) |
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| 1 | |||
| Website | 1 | MP Website | |
| Service Centre | 2 | 0 – Unavailable/Unknown, 1 – Available but Inactive 2 – Available and Active |
Google Maps, MP Facebook Page |
| Phone Number | 1.5 | 0 – Unavailable/Unknown, 0.75 – Available but Inactive 1.5 – Available and Active |
|
| 1.5 |
* Currently, we don’t have the resources to monitor socmed activeness, so all scores are based on 0 if unavailable, and full score if available.
Transparency (Work in Progress)
Note: Transparency scores are currently unavailable due to an incomplete data set. If you’re an MP and would like to declare any of the below, please get in touch with us at [email protected] so we can get the ball rolling!
Transparency is defined as how open your MP is with their finances – what do they own (asset) and what do they earn (income). To make these scores valid, the declarations need to be at most five years old. Any older statements or declarations will not be taken into consideration.
Our transparency score is calculated from collecting asset and income declaration data from publicly available sources such as the MACC Declaration portal and voluntary submissions from your MP, a maximum of 10 points will be given under Transparency.
- MACC – the official portal for government officials specifically the cabinet ministers to declare their assets and income, you can view more at this link.
- CTOS – the personal credit report of each MP detailing their credit lines and company ownerships. This is probably one of the most detailed reports you can get, but they are only available to individuals, which is why we need the MPs to send this to us voluntarily. For transparency’s sake, here is our co-founder’s CTOS printout as a reference.
- Statutory Declaration – A statutory declaration is a formal statement made affirming that something is true to the best knowledge of the person making the declaration. It has to be signed in the presence of a commissioner for oaths or a notary public.
The weightage and criteria for scoring is as follows:
| Field | Weightage | Criteria | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Asset Disclosure | 6 | MACC – 1pt CTOS – 3 pt Statutory Declaration – 2pt |
MACC CTOS Statutory Declaration |
| Income Disclosure | 4 | MACC – 4pt Statutory Declaration – 2pt |
Loyalty
Loyalty is defined as how frequently (or rather, infrequently) an MP changes his/her/their parties, alliance/coalitions and constituencies.
As you might expect, this was one of the key ones we had when conceptualising the site.
The weightage and criteria for scoring is as follows:
| Field | Weightage | Criteria | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parties changed | 5 | 5 * (1 / # of parties change) | SPR Electoral Archives Wikipedia Parliament Archives |
| Alliance / Coalition | 2 | 2 * (1 / # of alliance change) | |
| Constituency | 3 | 3 * (1 / # of constituency change) |
Win Rate
We thought it important to also show how likely an MP is to retain their seat. Our win rate score is calculated from collecting past electoral data, a maximum of 10 points will be given under Win Rate.
The weightage and criteria for scoring is as follows:
| Field | Weightage | Criteria | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average Win Rate | 6 | Number of Victory / Number of Elections Contested | SPR Electoral Archives Government Data Portal Wikipedia |
| Average Margin of Victory | 4 | Average of Past 3 Elections’ Votes Obtained / Total Electors |
Work Ethic
It’s important to know that your MPs are hard at work for you. We calculate an MP’s work ethic score by combing through the primary and official source of parliamentary records i.e. the Hansards for their participation in questioning government policy, tabling motions and bills, and their participation in Parliamentary Committees.
Amazingly, parliamentary attendance is not officially released to the public (even though it is tracked, as MPs are required to sign their attendance). However, we intend to track the MP’s attendance in partnership with our friends at Undi18 as soon as the Emergency is lifted. Due to the current state of emergency, the weightage for these fields might change.
Parliamentary attendance is now released on HANSARDS as of July 2021. We are using that data as we were unable to monitor Parliamentary feeds for attendance due to lack of available cameras to cover all seats. Please keep in mind that HANSARD attendance is marked only once a day, and might not be indicative of an MP staying the entire session. However, it is the best we have at the moment.
| Field | Weightage | Criteria | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Attendance Rate | 5 | # of Sessions Attended / # of Sittings | Parliamentary Records Parliament Hansard Undi18 observations |
| Questions Polled per Seating | 2 | # of Questions Asked / Session (2 questions enough for full score) | |
| Private Member Bills per Seating | 1 | # of Bills Tabled / # of Sittings (1 bill enough for full score) | |
| # of Working Committees Participated | 2 | # of Committees active (max score 2) |
Our goal for this field will be to pressure the government to make these stats more observable and transparent.