Keeping a Request Register That Holds Up

A single request is easy to keep in your head. Ten requests to six different offices over two months are not. Once an investigation grows beyond a first letter, the reporter who wins is usually the one who wrote things down, not the one with the best memory of who said what and when.

A request register does not need to be elaborate. A simple table, kept in whatever tool you already use, is enough: the office addressed, the date sent, the record described, the statutory deadline, and the outcome. What matters is that it is updated the same day a letter goes out or a reply comes in, not reconstructed weeks later from memory.

Sequence, don't scatter

A register also does quieter work: it shows you where your next request should go. If one office's response references a contractor's own filings, that becomes the next line in the register, not a separate thread you have to remember to chase. Investigations built this way tend to move in a clear line, each request informed by the last, rather than as a pile of disconnected letters sent all at once.

Reconcile before you write

When material finally arrives from different bodies, it rarely lines up perfectly on the first read. Dates differ, figures are rounded differently, names are spelled two ways. The register is where this gets sorted out, cross-referenced against what was actually asked for, before any of it goes into a draft. Writing up findings alongside the request history — not after discarding it — is what lets an editor, or a reader, see exactly how each claim was obtained.