2025 in review

Reflections from our Managing Director

Angela Dixon

Managing Director

I am humbled to be part of a mission-driven social enterprise delivering market-leading, value-for-money services that support real world impact, improve citizen outcomes and make local authority officers’ lives just that bit easier.

Speaking to our incredible local authority clients throughout this year, it has been clear that these dedicated teams are increasingly being tasked with delivering across multiple objectives and against complex and growing demands. There are no simple solutions to the political and financial pressures and uncertainty that local authorities continue to face; and yet, I am fortunate indeed to regularly witness how the implementation of iterative improvements to public service process flows, enabled by our flexible technology, can drastically improve efficiencies in workflows.

This year as always, the SocietyWorks team has continued to deliver the small (and large) changes that have directly improved the lives of citizens and alleviated pressure on local authority officers.

I am looking forward to 2026, when we will see the release of new services built in collaboration with local authorities wishing to better serve citizens through effective, intuitive and integrated digital solutions.

Comments from our Chair

Mandy Merron

Chair

2025 has been another successful year for SocietyWorks. We have been so pleased to welcome more local authorities into partnership. Our product offering has continued to evolve to meet the needs of our clients, with the flexibility to integrate with any back-end system and tailor reporting processes to support each council’s workflow being key to our approach.

We know that local authorities are faced with ever increasing challenges, with funding gaps in many of the most critical service areas. Structural change through Local Government Reorganisation is hotly debated amidst a shifting political landscape, and continues to feed into institutional uncertainty. In these most challenging of times, meaningful collaboration across sectors is an imperative, and one to which we at SocietyWorks are committed.

In 2026, SocietyWorks will increase its capacity to support even more local authorities in delivering critical public services that improve the lives of residents. We will also continue to generate wider social impact through the reinvestment of any profits made into the public benefit programmes delivered by our parent charity, mySociety.

2025 at a glance

1.1 million+ reports

sent via FixMyStreet and FixMyStreet Pro in 2025.

200,000+ updates

estimated to be sent per year by FixMyStreet Pro for Lincolnshire County Council.

40 councils and public bodies

using our solutions to bridge gaps between themselves and members of the public.

32,000+ bulky waste collections

booked through WasteWorks this year.

£299k donated

to our parent charity mySociety, supporting its mission to create and run digital services that break down barriers to democratic participation, equipping people to take action and drive meaningful change.

Read mySociety’s Impact Report 2024/25 to understand more about where our donations go and the impact they have.

“A genuine success story”

Lincolnshire County Council & FixMyStreet Pro

Since 2018, FixMyStreet Pro has been helping one of the largest counties in England to provide an automated, integrated and intuitive fault reporting service for street, highway and environment issues.

Lincolnshire have been gold standard users of the solution, always making the most of FixMyStreet Pro’s features to ensure their residents feel heard, know what happens after a report is submitted and are supported in providing the best information to ensure problems are triaged appropriately and efficiently.

Earlier this year we delved into our journey with Lincolnshire in a new case study — and what a journey it’s been!

Read the case study

Lincolnshire FixMyStreet cobrand preview

Public realm fault reporting

From potholes and fly-tipping to broken stiles and missing life rings, our FixMyStreet Pro solution gives councils and other public authorities exactly what they need to provide the most accessible, effective and sustainable way for reports of local problems to be raised and addressed.

Since its launch in 2012, FixMyStreet Pro has grown in tandem with the needs of its users, both authorities and the people they serve. Take a look at how it’s evolved throughout 2025.

Closing reports to updates within different timeframes

Where a problem is something authorities know is likely to reoccur in the same area, this new feature within FixMyStreet Pro’s admin interface helps to prevent users providing updates on old reports to alert to a new occurrence of the same issue.

Check it out

Navigating reports of problems on public rights of way

With over 14,000 miles of public rights of way in England and Wales, managed by a combined network of local councils, highways authorities and private landowners, we’ve been making it easier for everyone to know what can be reported and where.

Take a look

Detecting when reports are being made on private roads

Using an asset layer shared via integration with an asset management system, councils and other public authorities responsible for fixing local problems can detect when a user is trying to make a report on a private or unadopted road.

Learn more

Managing sudden increases in reports

Spikes in reports can be caused by a number of different things, from expected seasonal changes to unexpected incidents. Take a look at some of the ways FixMyStreet Pro has been helping authorities to maintain efficiency and manage expectations.

Explore some examples

Incorporating housing fault reports into FixMyStreet Pro

From signposting or triaging directly to different council departments, to housing associations running their own reporting service alongside councils for both residents and caretaker staff to use, there are lots of ways FixMyStreet Pro can be used to manage housing-related fault reports.

“This achievement would not have been possible without the invaluable partnership and tireless dedication of SocietyWorks. Their exceptional expertise in developing and refining the WasteWorks platform proved instrumental in facilitating the seamless integration and operation of this fantastic new service.”

Paul Brockwell, Head of Waste and Street Cleaning at London Borough of Sutton

Waste services

As one of the few local authority services that almost everyone accesses in one way or another, waste can quickly become a lightning rod for complaints and costly interventions when the technology in use isn’t meeting needs.

This year, we’ve been continuing to support our WasteWorks clients as they navigate necessary changes to the delivery of their waste services, staying true to our promise that our technology can flex around changing requirements without compromising on the user experience.

Bulky waste in Bexley

2025 saw the next stage of our phased rollout of WasteWorks for the London Borough of Bexley go live, incorporating into the service the ability for residents to sign up to and pay for a bulky waste collection.

In-cab system switchovers

A significant piece of work this year for the London boroughs of Kingston Upon Thames and Sutton: keeping things consistent for front-end users while the councils navigated a migration to a new version of their integrated in-cab system Echo.

Small items in Sutton

Also this year, we worked with Sutton to introduce the ability for residents to use the council’s version of WasteWorks to book a collection for small items, such as batteries and coffee pods, all facilitated by integration with Echo.

Leading from the front

In October it was announced that our Managing Director Angela Dixon has been appointed to the techUK Local Public Services Committee 2025-27.

This committee drives techUK’s mission to enable innovation and transformation in local public services — helping councils and the tech industry deliver better outcomes for communities.

Angela is firmly dedicated to bringing our vision of a world where all citizens can access public sector services with ease through intuitive and simple to use digital solutions to reality, and brings a wealth of knowledge, empathy and passion to the committee.

Find out more

New launches

2025 saw the launch of three exciting new installations of our solutions for the following authorities — thank you for joining us!

South Kesteven District Council

Taking advantage of FixMyStreet Pro’s dedicated offering for district councils, South Kesteven joined our community this year, benefiting from the ability to run a reporting service that is truly in sync with Lincolnshire County Council.

Gloucester City Council

Gloucester City chose FixMyStreet Pro as part of a drive to streamline the reporting process and enhance communication with residents and other local authorities, with certain reports automatically triaged to Gloucestershire County Council.

Aberdeenshire Council

The first of its kind in Scotland, Aberdeenshire Council became the latest local authority to switch to a fully integrated version of FixMyStreet Pro for managing street, highway and environment fault reports from members of the public.

“We are delighted to introduce FixMyStreet technology to residents of South Kesteven. This platform not only streamlines reporting but also gives residents the chance to directly participate in the care and enhancement of their community.”

Councillor Ashley Baxter, Leader of South Kesteven District Council

Parish and town councils

With smaller local councils taking on more responsibility in light of local government reorganisation, one of our key focuses this year has been to work on enabling them to take advantage of FixMyStreet’s functionality, creating a joined-up community of councils that can remain responsive to citizens throughout the changes taking place.

To start with, we launched a new parish-level email alerts and RSS feed, enabling parish and town councils to keep track of reports made via FixMyStreet within their ward boundary.

Alongside this we’ve been preparing to launch a dedicated version of FixMyStreet for local councils, giving parish and town councils the ability to run their own reporting service via FixMyStreet and unifying councils at all levels, making sure reports always go to the people who can fix them.

Find out more

Integrations

We believe a unified approach to public service delivery is essential, and are fully committed to working in partnership with any third party software where it adds value and impact for our customers.

We integrate with a great many different systems and service providers, which you can read more about on our integrations page.

Causeway Alloy and FixMyStreet Pro for Bristol City Council

Idox Geospatial Countryside Asset Management System and FixMyStreet Pro for Buckinghamshire Council

User forums

This year we launched two new group forums on the GovGroups platform for users of our FixMyStreet Pro and WasteWorks solutions.

Acting on feedback from our clients, the groups give the councils and other public sector bodies in our community the opportunity to seek and share advice and experiences with each other in between our formal user group meet-ups.

We chose GovGroups to host the groups because it is easy to use and designed especially for people involved in public services to collaborate with each other. As well as joining existing groups, members can also set up their own if desired.

The FixMyStreet Pro and WasteWorks user groups are exclusive to clients and joined by invitation only. If you’re a client and you’re not yet in the group, let your account manager know.

Advice and insights

Flick through some of the experience-driven advice and thought pieces shared by our small but mighty team here at SocietyWorks this year.

Potholes can’t be fixed with funding alone

Using FixMyStreet data: what it tells you and what it doesn’t

Beyond the numbers: capturing true social value in procurement

Until AI can fix the causes of potholes, it’s not the answer to the problem

Sponsorships

Along with our parent charity mySociety, SocietyWorks is now formally sponsoring OpenStreetMap Foundation and MetaCPAN — two key external pieces of digital infrastructure that help us to run our services.

Events

As a fully remote organisation, getting out and about at events gives us a rare chance to meet people in person, make new connections and catch up with familiar faces. Thank you to everyone who took the time to come and see us, share your stories and give us such inspirational food for thought. Take a look at some snaps from this year’s events schedule.

Coming up in 2026

FixMyStreet for Parish & Town Councils

As mentioned above, after spending time this year getting ready to extend our functionality to smaller local councils, we’ll be pressing the big green button on this very soon!

Preventing data breaches

Building on mySociety’s extensive experience running Transparency services like WhatDoTheyKnow and Alaveteli, we’re working on a new service allowing users to check spreadsheets for personally identifiable information before sharing to prevent data breaches.

Environmental reporting

Responding to the needs of our clients as they face increasingly complex environmental issues and legislation, we are exploring how we can support them with environment fault reporting. We’ll be harnessing everything we’ve learned from running FixMyStreet since 2007, as well through the successful running of a noise reporting service, NoiseWorks, for the London Borough of Hackney for the past few years.

Commercial waste

Continuing on work started this year to scope out the incorporation of commercial waste into our WasteWorks solution, we’ll be advancing this project further in 2026, working in collaboration with our council clients and integration partners.

Our parent charity mySociety has been as busy as ever in 2025, with a particular focus on the core issues of protecting democracy, and increasing the transparency of our institutions.

Parliamentary website TheyWorkForYou gained a bundle of new features and data, all designed to make it easier for everyone to understand what is happening in Parliament, and what interests their MPs have.

Meanwhile, work focused on Wales has kicked off on the ‘contact your representative’ website WriteToThem, to improve its ability to get the right message to the right place, as well as helping disadvantaged communities to gain better access to their elected representatives.

In June, we once again convened the global civic tech community at the TICTeC conference — this time with an urgent theme of how technology can protect the democratic principles and freedoms that are under threat around the world.

We continue to empower small groups such as End Violence Against Women and Climate Emergency UK, lending our time and expertise to help collate and share data that furthers their causes.

And we’ve kicked off a major strand of work looking at AI in government, while also experimenting responsibly with AI and Large Language Models in our own work — meaning that we come from a position of up-to-date knowledge.

2025 in reviewin review