Understanding FixMyStreet report data

FixMyStreet is a reporting service for local problems like potholes and fly-tipping built and run by civic technology charity mySociety. It sends reports to the people that can fix them and helps to construct a snapshot of communities by displaying on the map everything that’s been reported.

FixMyStreet report data can tell you lots of interesting things, such as:

  • What is being reported in a certain area and where;
  • Who is reporting problems;
  • When and where certain issues peak and trough throughout the year.

If you’re reading this page, you’re probably interested in analysing some FixMyStreet report data – which is great!

Before you get started, there are some really important things to understand about FixMyStreet report data.

If you’re short on time, the key things you need to know are:

  • FixMyStreet report data should NOT be used to make comparisons at the national or local level;
  • An increase or decrease in FixMyStreet reports within a category over a certain time period does not directly indicate more or fewer instances of the problem; only that more or fewer reports started to be made via FixMyStreet;
  • The only way to know exactly how many reports have been made in an area and how this differs over time is to ask the responsible authority directly. You might find mySociety’s Freedom of Information service WhatDoTheyKnow useful for this.

If you’re interested in the details, keep reading!

Why FixMyStreet data cannot be used to fairly compare areas

  1. FixMyStreet is one of many ways in which citizens across the UK can report a problem to their local council or authority. In many cases, FixMyStreet works alongside authorities’ own online reporting services. Reports are also made to authorities via social media, via telephone, via email and even via word of mouth to local councillors. As such, FixMyStreet reports alone do not tell the full story.
  2. Meanwhile, a growing number of councils use the platform as their own integrated service via FixMyStreet Pro, which is run by SocietyWorks, the wholly owned subsidiary of mySociety. As a result, these areas may seem to have more reports about an issue than others, but this doesn’t suggest the problem is more prevalent there; it suggests that more reports are being made via FixMyStreet instead of another service or channel.
  3. There’s also the matter of individual bias. Where there are high numbers of reports in an area, it’s important to understand whether those reports are coming from lots of people or from a handful of (or even just one!) very active user(s) – and if such a user moved house during that time, how would this affect the report rate?
  4. Another thing to note is that different councils use the service in different ways, and a small number of councils refuse to accept reports from residents via third parties like FixMyStreet full stop, so in those areas the data would make it look as though there are no problems there at all.
  5. It is also worth noting that reports on FixMyStreet display a status to say whether the issue is fixed or not. This helps people in a community to understand what is being done, but unless the council integrates with FixMyStreet to manage their own reports, it generally relies on users coming back to mark an issue as fixed when it has been. This limits the reliability of data looking at, for example, all open reports within a certain category, because some of those issues may actually have been resolved. Follow-ups sent to report-makers help to mitigate this, while reports whose statuses haven’t changed for a long time eventually become marked as ‘unknown’.
  6. Furthermore, categories on FixMyStreet and FixMyStreet Pro are set by each individual council to reflect the issues they can deal with and the terminology used by their internal systems. Report-makers select the category they think best matches the problem they want to report. For that reason there is no such thing as a simple way to compare reports of a problem in an area, because reports of the same issue might also be listed under other categories.

  7. Perhaps the most crucial reason comparison is unfair using FixMyStreet data alone is the disparity in where it is used, how it is used and who it is used by across the UK. A joint research article published in the Spring 2023 edition of the Irish Local Authority Times by mySociety and the University of Stirling found that people in areas of middle deprivation report the most problems via FixMyStreet, but that does not mean those areas have the most problems.

    Another example of this can be found in mySociety research into incidents of deprivation from 2019 which found that reports of dog fouling have a peak in areas of middle deprivation, but this does not reflect the real world incidence of dog fouling, which was found to be most prevalent in the highest areas of deprivation.

    More generally, joint research in 2018 by the University of Stirling, the University of Sheffield and mySociety into the geography of FixMyStreet reports found that there are clear differences between areas in relation to the kinds of things that are reported most frequently, making comparison on a national scale wholly unreliable.

About FixMyStreet

mySociety built FixMyStreet in 2007 to make it easier for people to report problems in their neighbourhood online, with a simple reporting process and no need for any prior knowledge of council boundaries or responsibilities.

These days FixMyStreet acts as a national reporting platform, triaging reports between councils at all levels, as well as to highways agencies and housing associations.

For more information about FixMyStreet, you’ll find lots of answers to our most commonly asked questions in our FAQs. If your question is not answered there, then send us a message!