What MPs really do: turning data into democratic power in Spain

Date

11:35 am—11:55 am · June 11, 2025

Room

Herten Aas / Livestreamed

'Qué Hacen Los Diputados' (What MPs Do) addresses gaps in parliamentary transparency and accountability, addressing a persistent reality: public institutions often lag in transparency and accountability without citizen pressure. The project organises parliamentary data in an accessible, user-friendly format — invaluable for citizens, journalists, researchers, and civil society, and fostering informed participation.

Political Watch is a Spanish think-and-do-tank, enhancing democracy through technology.

Their project Qué Hacen Los Diputados (QHLD, What MPs Do) addresses gaps in parliamentary transparency and accountability by:

• analysing parliamentary activity across 24 key topics (housing, climate change, education, etc) using natural language processing
• scoring individual MPs on these topics (0–100) based on legislative initiatives, political guidance, and government oversight, weighted for impact. An algorithm penalises MEPs’ inactivity
• offering a personalised alert system for citizens to track their interests — filling a gap in public digital services.

This initiative addresses a persistent reality: public institutions often lag in transparency and accountability without citizen pressure. 

Qué Hacen Los Diputados organises parliamentary data in an accessible, user-friendly format, reducing barriers posed by administrative jargon. This tool is invaluable for citizens, journalists, researchers, and civil society, fostering informed participation — and the work has contributed to advance Spain’s Open Parliament Plan, expected to be approved soon.

Political Watch provides free, reusable data in Excel/CSV or JSON formats via their website and API. All code is available on Github. Leveraging this data, they lead advocacy efforts to boost participation, transparency, and accountability. Collaboration with civil society organisations and ongoing dialogue with MPs are central to their approach.

Thanks to the data extracted and categorised by QHLD, reports have been produced on the legislative measures adopted to tackle poverty in Spain, on diabetes research and treatment, on the change in the discourse on migration since the emergence of extreme right-wing parties in Parliament and on the approach to artificial intelligence, which have led to successful advocacy strategies. 

Explore: https://quehacenlosdiputados.es/