[wdmmg-discuss] CRA

Thu Feb 18 23:36:14 UTC 2010

I had a reply, from my contacts at the Treasury, to my request to 
fix all the inconsistencies in the two COFOG columns of the CRA.

The Treasury recommend we wait for the next CRA to get consistent COFOG 
data.

I'm not so worried about the messed up COFOG data in the CRA. I'm fairly 
confident that will be fixed in the 2010 version.

I am concerned that the descriptions of spending in the CRA, what they 
call the 'program object group alias', are not very useful. The 'program 
object groups' are only for the government departments to identify 
spending; they don't need to have meaning to anyone else, so consequently 
they are often not very descriptive.

Here are some examples, picked randomly, of program object groups aliases:

"P37 S121234 Working Age client private sector Reciept"
"P37 S121237 Modernisation - Corporate"
"P37 S121201 Corporate Services Administration"
"P37 S121829 REMPLOY"
"P37 S121801 ES Programmes"
"P37 S121282 Modernisation data moved from RFR 5"

I have no idea what these mean, and knowing which department they come 
under doesn't help.

For this reason the Treasury's advice is that the CRA is not good data to 
visualise.

Anyway I'm going visit the Treasury again to talk more about COINS.