Where Does My Money Go?
Digging Into Public Spending
OpenTech, 2010-09-11
Rufus Pollock
[Open Knowledge Foundation]
Licensed under cc-by v3.0 (any jurisdiction)
Started in 2007, winner SUABW 2008, Prototype 2009, ...
Funding support from C4/4IP + Cabinet Office. Working with Iconomical, Dave McCandless, ...
Motivation:
Where Does Our Money Go When We Pay Taxes?
Know (and show) exactly where every £ € $ went to ...
Gov Spending is 40% of GDP in UK
Many misconceptions:
- Defence < 5%
- Old Age More than Education
Help Citizens Explore, Analyze and Understand
Transparency, Accountability and Ownership (It's Your Gov!)
What Does It Involve?
Research
Unfortunately spending data does not come nicely wrapped up!
Acquiring Data
Finding, Requesting (Demanding), Cleaning ...
E.g. 8 months, FOI etc to get COINS
We want to enable others to build their own apps, do their own research ...
Make It Personal: "My" Money
Enable the Community to Contribute
Editability: plenty to correct in the source data!
Commenting/annotation: data about the data is (very) valuable
(what's hot, what's not!)
Conclusion
Amazing Richness and Relevance
(Almost) Everyone Pays Taxes
Everyone Uses Public Services
Digging into Public Data is Complicated!
But It's Worth It
