Comments on: Data

By: Rufus Pollock

Rufus Pollock — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 11:04:07 +0000

Andrew: Interesting idea.We do have a fairly heavy commitment to using “free/open source” software, especially in a situation like this where customization would likely be needed which could be difficult with a proprietary system. Is there any free/open source work out there or is it all proprietary?

By: Andrew S

Andrew S — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 13:49:29 +0000

Perhaps a word with Cyberscience, Cognos, Microsoft or Oracle could produce a good result if “sold” to them about the benfits of publicity and social empowerment etc.

Cyberscience have a fantastic reporting and BI tool that presents into a webpage – sitting on most platforms and databases concurrently http://www.cyberscience.com

By: Rufus Pollock

Rufus Pollock — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 12:45:44 +0000

James: you're not alone in your suggestion to including income as well as expenditure (see the prototype feedback page). This is at the top of our list of things to do next.

By: Rufus Pollock

Rufus Pollock — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 12:44:32 +0000

El: like your suggestion of using market research tools to analyse this kind of data. Do you know of any opensource systems of this kind or are they all proprietary?

By: Rufus Pollock

Rufus Pollock — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 12:43:42 +0000

Andrew: we already have spending by department in the data, though we aren't showing that in the current prototype. Also agree that getting spending data from quangos is important and it already out there (at least partially). The general challenge with using such info is integrating it, in particular ensuring we aren't double counting somewhere.

Re mysociety.org suggestion: we're already in close contact with them (Tom Steinberg is on our Advisory Panel) and we're looking to collaborate wherever we can!

By: lisa

lisa — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 19:32:59 +0000

Hi Andrew, Thank you for your kind offer of help. If you could drop me a quick email to lisa.evans@okfn.org we can talk about the work you would like to do.

By: James Walmsley

James Walmsley — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 19:44:52 +0000

This site is great, the gripe I have is it only shows spending.

You need to add national income, and its various sources. That way it would be easier for people to see real data and figures on the national deficit etc.

James

By: El

El — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 15:52:19 +0000

The user should be able to manipulate the data themselves. It would make the tool incredibly useful as a resource for investigating the success and failures of spend as well as comparing data sets themselves. It's great that you provide the source, but the public really needs this data as easy and flexible to access as the market research tools used by firms to analyse sales and growth.

Great job though guys. I'm a huge fan of this project! Good luck.

By: Andrew Sowden

Andrew Sowden — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 10:16:59 +0000

and .. could extra measures be introduced to the spending categories so they can be aligned to Ministerial Departments?

This way we can actually see the spend of each Minister.

see http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/ministerial_responsibilities/departments.aspx

The next logical step would be the introduction of “Public Body” measures too .. that way we can see the spend by “Non Departmental Public Bodies” ..

(perhaps also some collaboration with the good people at mysociety.org?)

By: Andrew Sowden

Andrew Sowden — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 09:50:53 +0000

A parallel project could be "Where Does The Money Come From?" to highlight where the revenue TO the Government, both local and central and movements between, can be seen.

Well done and if there is anything I may be able to help with - let me know!