Just Scraping the Surface: Comparing the UK Lobbying Register to Data on Ministerial Meetings

Government ministries in the UK are required to release quarterly lists of the outside groups and individuals with whom they meet, though these records are formatted in many different ways and are posted on a large number of websites. By collating and standardizing these records, we develop for the first time a database of more than 72,000 meetings between organizations and ministry personnel from 2011-2015. In this paper we describe these data and compare them to other lists of lobbyists and lobbying clients in the UK and in other countries. We find that the UK Lobbying Register woefully underreports lobbying activity in the British capital. We comment on the causes and consequences of the Register’s inadequacy, and use other countries’ experiences to recommend possible improvements.