Clearing is an independent, reader-funded newsroom. We read the contracts, court files and spreadsheets that were public all along — and publish what they add up to.
No owner, no advertisers, no paywall. A single question can take us a year, and every file comes with the documents behind it, so you can check our work line by line.
How we workRecent files
Each investigation runs from three to fourteen months. These are the ones that changed something.
Browse the archive-
The river that billed its own towns
A regional water company passed £41m of clean-up costs to the households downstream of its own spills.
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Forty hours in the corridor
Hospital data showed patients waiting on trolleys far longer than the figures sent to ministers.
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Contracts signed after dark
Council building deals approved between 11 pm and 2 am, and the three firms that won every one of them.
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Nine ships, one owner
A fleet of cargo ships renamed and reflagged every year to stay one step ahead of port inspections.
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The chimney nobody counted
A power plant left off the national emissions register for six years, and the paperwork that kept it there.
How a file gets made
Every investigation goes through the same five steps. Nothing is published until each one is done.
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Week 1
A tip or a pattern
Most files begin with a message from someone inside, or a number that doesn't match the one printed next to it.
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Weeks 2–10
Records first
We request, scrape and read the documents before we call anyone. The paper trail decides whether there is a story.
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Weeks 6–14
Two sources, one document
Every claim needs a record and two people who confirm it independently. Our data desk re-runs every figure.
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Ten days
Right of reply
Everyone we name receives our findings in writing and at least ten working days to answer, in full and on the record.
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After
Publish, then stay
The documents go online with the story. Then we keep reporting until someone answers for what we found.
From the field
Records only go so far. These are the places our reporters went to see for themselves.
Estuary, low tideThe river file, 2026 Ring road, night shiftThe corridor file, 2025 Service tunnel, level twoThe contracts file, 2025 Coast road, 5 a.m.The chimney file, 2023 High street, closing timeThe housing file, 2025 Records office, day nineThe water file, 2026
What changed after
We count a file as finished when something moves: a law, a refund, a resignation, an inquiry.
3
laws rewritten after the water, housing and care-home files
£41m
returned to households that were billed for someone else's clean-up
9
officials who resigned or were removed from their posts
26
inquiries opened by regulators and parliamentary committees
Who pays for this
No single donor gives more than five per cent of our budget. Full accounts are published every April.
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Mara Quint
Editor
Led the water file. Fifteen years on the courts beat before that.
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Tomas Ferrer
Data editor
Re-runs every figure we print. Built the hospital waiting-time model.
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Ada Lindqvist
Investigations
Spent nine months on the shipping registers behind the port file.
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Owen Hale
Legal counsel
Reads every line before it runs. Has not lost a case in eleven years.
In their words
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I had read those council minutes for years and never seen it. They read them once and saw everything.
Ruth AdebayoMember since 2019, Bristol
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They sent me every paragraph that mentioned me, ten days before it ran. Nobody has ever done that.
Colin MarshNamed in the housing file
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Our town got its money back because a reporter spent four months inside a spreadsheet.
Dev MalhotraParish councillor, Keynsham
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It is the one email I open before the coffee is ready.
Inês CarvalhoMember since 2022, Leeds
Keep it free to read
Everything we publish stays free. Members make that possible, and see the documents first.
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Reader
£0always
Every file and every document, free, for as long as we exist.
- The Friday file newsletter
- All investigations and source documents
- Alerts when we correct something
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Member
£8a month
Most of our readers who give start here. It pays for one day of records requests a year.
- Everything in Reader
- Documents a week before publication
- A quarterly call with the desk
- Your name in the annual report, if you like
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Patron
£25a month
Fund a file from the first request to the follow-up story.
- Everything in Member
- An invitation to the annual briefing
- A named thank-you on a file you choose
Clearing Newsroom is a registered charity. Gifts from UK taxpayers qualify for Gift Aid.
Questions
If yours is not here, ask us directly. A person on the desk answers within two working days.
Ask the desk-
Yes, if you use the channels on this page. Signal and our secure form never store your number or IP address. Please don't contact us from a work device or a work network.
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No. Paying for information makes it less reliable and puts sources at risk. We can cover travel costs if you need to meet us in person.
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Nobody. We are a registered charity run by a board of trustees, and none of them can see a story before it is published.
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Openly. Every correction is dated, added to the story it changes and listed in our public corrections log.
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Yes, free of charge, under a Creative Commons licence, as long as you credit Clearing and link to the original file.
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Any time, in two clicks, with no questions asked. Yearly members get the unused months back.
Seen something that should not stay hidden?
Tell us what you know. You don't need documents and you don't need to give your name. A reporter reads every message.
- Signal+44 7700 900 412
- Secure emailtips@clearing.example
- PostPO Box 2041, Bristol BS99 1XX
- In personWeekdays 10:00–17:00, by appointment