The speculation in the original article is no longer such. The example government contractor, the Open Knowledge Foundation has released details of its financial transactions with the UK government: http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/okfn-discuss/2011-July/007890.html
A brief look at their account with the Cabinet Office (COI) shows that not only some 180k GBP [1] is unreported, but the two transactions that are reported do not match anything in OKF's books. I would tend to trust OKF's books because they actually have a legal requirement to keep them...
What does this tell us? Where do these numbers come from? How is it that even the Cabinet Office apparently does not deliver on the transparency promise? Is this data of any use at all?
-w
[1] total of invoices > 25k less the 70k that actually is reported by COI
On a related note, we published some of our (University of Southampton's) payments as a dataset, and some information was not included as it was either strategically sensitive, or subject to data protection.
When I used this for some visualisations, it gives a false impression of percentage spend on various things. It would seem like good practice, in transparency data to have a clear way to indicate amounts in a dataset deliberately not shown. That would be helpful to see the difference between accidental and intentional omission. Maybe a few standard categories, "non itemised payments" for things < 500 (or whatever the threshold used), "sensitive payments" or "payments not shown due to dpa". Most (all?) of the DPA related stuff was, I believe, staff salaries, so maybe that could also be shown as a combined value rather than individual payments.
Unfortunately there are some bugs in the tool which exports our finance data, and I'm still waiting on a patch/fix from UNIT 4 who make the Agresso software we use. On the upside they do have an RDF export, which will be great when and if they get the kinks out.
> The speculation in the original article is no longer such. The example > government contractor, the Open Knowledge Foundation has released > details of its financial transactions with the UK government: > http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/okfn-discuss/2011-July/007890.html
> A brief look at their account with the Cabinet Office (COI) shows that > not only some 180k GBP [1] is unreported, but the two transactions > that are reported do not match anything in OKF's books. I would tend > to trust OKF's books because they actually have a legal requirement to > keep them...
> What does this tell us? Where do these numbers come from? How is it > that even the Cabinet Office apparently does not deliver on the > transparency promise? Is this data of any use at all?
> -w
> [1] total of invoices> 25k less the 70k that actually is reported by COI
On 21 July 2011 15:29, William Waites <wwai...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> The speculation in the original article is no longer such. The example > government contractor, the Open Knowledge Foundation has released > details of its financial transactions with the UK government: > http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/okfn-discuss/2011-July/007890.html
> A brief look at their account with the Cabinet Office (COI) shows that
Ah, I see where you have misunderstood things - COI (Central Office of Information) is an intermediary between the Cabinet Office and providers such as the OKF. i.e. look for the COI transactions in the CO spending data.
So - no conspiracy after all. But I do think 'armchair auditors' should ask government sensible questions about the data, to help understand anomalies. This list or the data.gov.uk forum are reasonable places to ask these questions.
It's also worth mentioning here that, as a government department, the Cabinet Office is "only" asked to publish transactions over £25000 (whereas local authorities the bar is £500). Check the PM announcements last summer for all the facts, if you are interested. And yes, lobby your MP to open it up even further, should you find the data thus far valuable.
I was very pleased to see the recent announcement that the spending data will start to refer to payees with unified URIs.
> not only some 180k GBP [1] is unreported, but the two transactions > that are reported do not match anything in OKF's books. I would tend > to trust OKF's books because they actually have a legal requirement to > keep them...
> What does this tell us? Where do these numbers come from? How is it > that even the Cabinet Office apparently does not deliver on the > transparency promise? Is this data of any use at all?
> -w
> [1] total of invoices > 25k less the 70k that actually is reported by COI
On 21 July 2011 16:38, David Read <david.r...@okfn.org> wrote:
> Ah, I see where you have misunderstood things - COI (Central Office of > Information) is an intermediary between the Cabinet Office and > providers such as the OKF. i.e. look for the COI transactions in the > CO spending data.
Actually, I was considering the reporting where the recipient is OKF. Unless OKF appears in the openspending as something other than "Open Knowledge Foundation" (and I've checked a few plausible alternatives) this should be all of them:
If you or anyone else can find the missing data and post a link, I'd be very interested (and would seriously consider eating my hat).
> It's also worth mentioning here that, as a government department, the > Cabinet Office is "only" asked to publish transactions over £25000 > (whereas local authorities the bar is £500).
I am aware of this. I am only considering OKF invoices > 25k. I am also assuming that the payments were't made in chunks of £24999.
> I was very pleased to see the recent announcement that the spending > data will start to refer to payees with unified URIs.
So, as a way to clarify, could people start publishing amounts not included in a dataset for a period, where possible broken into reasons for non-inclusion?
> On 21 July 2011 15:29, William Waites<wwai...@googlemail.com> wrote: >> The speculation in the original article is no longer such. The example >> government contractor, the Open Knowledge Foundation has released >> details of its financial transactions with the UK government: >> http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/okfn-discuss/2011-July/007890.html
>> A brief look at their account with the Cabinet Office (COI) shows that > Ah, I see where you have misunderstood things - COI (Central Office of > Information) is an intermediary between the Cabinet Office and > providers such as the OKF. i.e. look for the COI transactions in the > CO spending data.
> So - no conspiracy after all. But I do think 'armchair auditors' > should ask government sensible questions about the data, to help > understand anomalies. This list or the data.gov.uk forum are > reasonable places to ask these questions.
> It's also worth mentioning here that, as a government department, the > Cabinet Office is "only" asked to publish transactions over 25000 > (whereas local authorities the bar is 500). Check the PM > announcements last summer for all the facts, if you are interested. > And yes, lobby your MP to open it up even further, should you find the > data thus far valuable.
> I was very pleased to see the recent announcement that the spending > data will start to refer to payees with unified URIs.
> David
>> not only some 180k GBP [1] is unreported, but the two transactions >> that are reported do not match anything in OKF's books. I would tend >> to trust OKF's books because they actually have a legal requirement to >> keep them...
>> What does this tell us? Where do these numbers come from? How is it >> that even the Cabinet Office apparently does not deliver on the >> transparency promise? Is this data of any use at all?
>> -w
>> [1] total of invoices> 25k less the 70k that actually is reported by COI
On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 3:29 PM, William Waites <wwai...@googlemail.com> wrote: > The speculation in the original article is no longer such. The example > government contractor, the Open Knowledge Foundation has released > details of its financial transactions with the UK government: > http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/okfn-discuss/2011-July/007890.html
> A brief look at their account with the Cabinet Office (COI) shows that > not only some 180k GBP [1] is unreported, but the two transactions > that are reported do not match anything in OKF's books. I would tend > to trust OKF's books because they actually have a legal requirement to > keep them...
> What does this tell us? Where do these numbers come from? How is it > that even the Cabinet Office apparently does not deliver on the > transparency promise? Is this data of any use at all?
> -w
> [1] total of invoices > 25k less the 70k that actually is reported by COI
thanks for the update, had not seen the original link
I became curious about funding of CKAN (and other stuff) a while back, and poste a note to this list, also asked around, but got replies
also put in a foi request, still unanswered
did not talk to you directly because you work for them and did not want to compromise your confidentiality and loyalty to people who give you work
However bringing transparency to the IT supply chain goes well beyond disclosing financials
I meant to add: not only the value of financial transactions (amount) but the specifications and justification of how decisions were made (was it public tender, that lead t contracts being awarded, if so can the documentation - call for tender, bids submitted, documentation of the selection process etc be accessed? ) should via foi if nothing else
will keep on stirring the pot, hope everyone will gain from more info, the contractors, the middle men, the public and the governing bodies
On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 7:41 PM, William Waites <wwai...@googlemail.com> wrote: > On 21 July 2011 19:32, Paola Di Maio <paola.dim...@gmail.com> wrote: >> William
>> what original article? >> (sorry have not seen a reference to an article in this thread)
> Was mentioned in a thread of almost the same name the other day:
also the public should be able to see (and ideally help to devise) the requirements and some specs for the work commissioned by public bodies to be comfortable with the whole process is not casually undertaken
P
On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 9:22 PM, Paola Di Maio <paola.dim...@gmail.com> wrote:
> thanks for the update, had not seen the original link
> I became curious about funding of CKAN (and other stuff) a while back, > and poste a note to this list, also asked around, but got no replies
> also put in a foi request, still unanswered
> did not talk to you directly because you work for them and did not > want to compromise your confidentiality and loyalty to people who give > you work
> However bringing transparency to the IT supply chain goes well beyond > disclosing financials
> I meant to add: not only the value of financial transactions (amount) > but the specifications and justification of how decisions were made > (was it public tender, that lead t contracts being awarded, if so can > the documentation - call for tender, bids submitted, documentation of > the selection process etc be accessed? ) should via foi if nothing > else
> will keep on stirring the pot, hope everyone will gain from more info, > the contractors, the middle men, the public and the governing bodies
> hope the trouble is for the better good
> cheers
> p
> On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 7:41 PM, William Waites <wwai...@googlemail.com> wrote: >> On 21 July 2011 19:32, Paola Di Maio <paola.dim...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> William
>>> what original article? >>> (sorry have not seen a reference to an article in this thread)
>> Was mentioned in a thread of almost the same name the other day:
On 21 July 2011 21:33, Paola Di Maio <paola.dim...@gmail.com> wrote:
> also the public should be able to see (and ideally help to devise) > the requirements and some specs for the work commissioned by public > bodies to be comfortable with the whole process is not casually > undertaken
Paola, just to clarify. In this instance I have not been looking into any question of decision-making transparency, though I generally agree that a more transparent process would be a good thing. Rather, I have been trying to ascertain something about the quality of the financial data published by the government. OKFN is only incidentally involved because it was possible to get their side of the accounts to compare with the data published by the Cabinet Office. From this perspective, how OKFN came to be hired and CKAN used is not relevant, the starting point is that it was hired. I also made a point of asking OKFN for the relevant parts of their accounts in a public forum so as to be able to do this analysis from public information without recourse to any confidential information that I may have been privy to in my work with them.
The conclusions, that at least for this subset of the data there is much information missing and what information is published seems to be wrong is worrisome because it puts the whole of the financial data published in the £25k spending series in doubt. The situation would appear to be far worse than the standard line of "the data is known to contain errors".
That the data is presented by the government, both on the prime minister's office web site and data.gov.uk as ostensibly accurate without any obvious statement about errors and omissions carries implications that I'll refrain from speculating about if, say, a journalist or policy analyst were to try to use it to draw any kind of conclusions or indeed do anything at all with it.
thanks for the clarification, and for making an important point
(I expressed similar frustrations in the past)
*my* point by contrast is that financial data represents only one part of an even more interesting set,
and it's not just how much money is exchanging hands, but also exactly what for? according to what mandate? following what procedure? just wondering...
and not just the OKFn, or the UK Gov any organisation handling public contracts in the EU should also be transparent and accountable, especially in relation to support initiatives designed to promote openness transparency and accountability (dogfood type of argument)
On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 10:31 PM, William Waites <wwai...@googlemail.com> wrote: > On 21 July 2011 21:33, Paola Di Maio <paola.dim...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> also the public should be able to see (and ideally help to devise) >> the requirements and some specs for the work commissioned by public >> bodies to be comfortable with the whole process is not casually >> undertaken
> Paola, just to clarify. In this instance I have not been looking into any > question of decision-making transparency, though I generally agree > that a more transparent process would be a good thing. Rather, I have > been trying to ascertain something about the quality of the financial > data published by the government. OKFN is only incidentally involved > because it was possible to get their side of the accounts to compare > with the data published by the Cabinet Office. From this perspective, > how OKFN came to be hired and CKAN used is not relevant, the > starting point is that it was hired. I also made a point of asking OKFN > for the relevant parts of their accounts in a public forum so as to be > able to do this analysis from public information without recourse to > any confidential information that I may have been privy to in my work > with them.
> The conclusions, that at least for this subset of the data there is much > information missing and what information is published seems to be > wrong is worrisome because it puts the whole of the financial data > published in the £25k spending series in doubt. The situation would > appear to be far worse than the standard line of "the data is known to > contain errors".
> That the data is presented by the government, both on the prime > minister's office web site and data.gov.uk as ostensibly accurate > without any obvious statement about errors and omissions carries > implications that I'll refrain from speculating about if, say, a journalist > or policy analyst were to try to use it to draw any kind of conclusions > or indeed do anything at all with it.
On Jul 21, 4:21 pm, Christopher Gutteridge <c...@ecs.soton.ac.uk>
wrote:
> Unfortunately there are some bugs in the tool which exports our finance
> data, and I'm still waiting on a patch/fix from UNIT 4 who make the
> Agresso software we use. On the upside they do have an RDF export, which
> will be great when and if they get the kinks out.
Yes, the limitations imposed by using proprietary software.
