[wdmmg-discuss] "Unknowns" and Why is PESA better than CRA?

[Dave Boyce]

On 22 Jun 2010, at 22:39, David Jones wrote:

> 
> The current dashboard has some large "Unknown" bubbles (For example,
> underneath Education (82bn) there is a 44bn Unknown (for 2008/09 tax
> year)).  Pretty much most of these large Unknowns are the "LA data"
> problem described in Alistair's earlier e-mail:
> http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/wdmmg-discuss/2010-April/000165.html
> ).
> 
> There are 2 key observations:
> 
> 1) This data is better in PESA (than CRA);
> 2) The "Unknowns" disappear in more recent tax years (because they are
> projections?  if so, why is that?).

The LA data is English Local Authority spending, but in CRA it's only allocated within COFOG level 1 (in general). We can't define it any better than that just using the CRA, so it goes into an 'Unknown' bucket. The reason why there are large Unknowns in particular spending categories is because for some government functions like Education, spending is performed by local authorities rather than by central government departments.

As you have noticed, PESA allocates the LA spending properly, so the information is definitely there somewhere!

The last two years have no Unknowns because there are no values specified under LA spending for those years. I assume that's simply because the local authorities haven't provided that data.

Regards,

	- Dave