[wdmmg-discuss] COINS contract

Wed Mar 31 18:16:50 UTC 2010

No point in going for tender documents.  Those don't get disclosed,
and anyway are a distraction.  It is reasonable for the government to
need (and a company like this to persuade them that they need) some
way of rationally allocating the budget to the different departments ,
other than pulling it out of their hats in an argument around the
cabinet room table.

The budgetary process within the government represents the real
exercises in power, so they're not going to let us anywhere near that.
 What we are demanding to know is the outcome.  Where is the money
spent?  This is not the same as the budget allocations...

To allocate the money next year on a rational basis, the COINS system
takes in the spending records from last year in order to inform the
allocations.  We need to intercept those records, so far as they
exist.

I'm also hoping for circulation of money measurements.  For example,
if the government spends £100k on salaries, it gets 30% of the money
refunded through income tax.  If it spends it on imported goods, that
money does not come back.

JT

On Wed, Mar 31, 2010 at 6:56 PM, Lisa Evans <lisa.evans at okfn.org> wrote:
>>> We may still be barking up the wrong hat-stand.  COINS is probably no
>>> more than a visualization tool -- not the database.  What we need is
>>> the part which explains how they import the data from the "*.money"
>>> file they get emailed from the Home Office, and then go for these
>>> imports.
>>
>> That would seem to be borne out by http://www.terasolve.com/camelot.html
>> which seems to be the software mentioned in the contract.
>>
>> Not so sure the Home Office is the (only) source of the data though, at
>> the very least I would expect the Foreign Office to similarly send
>> information to the treasury.
>
> Yes, all government departments have input to COINS. The departments define
> their spending categories for COINS and then they update the treasury with
> how much they have spend against each of these categories by filling out
> this form every year:
>
> http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/cra_form.xls
>
> There are other processes that involve COINS too, that I know of, such as
> COINS contains the estimates of spending, the agreed spending as well as
> where the spending has been of benefit.
>
>> A reasonable follow-up might be to ask for the tender documents and
>> project specifications that led to this contract being awarded (ideally
>> along with their responses). Normally we would find the data sources
>> that were to be processed spelled out there (otherwise how could
>> companies be expected to bid sensibly?).
>
> Yes, I'll do that.
>