[wdmmg-discuss] HMT guidelines on departmental spending

[Lisa Evans]

They have met the basic requirement of 'raw data now'. I think this first 
year of spending data will have samples of good data as well as poor data. 
Hopefully data users will show examples of what is possible with the good 
samples, then next year they will be able to defiine what they want in 
more detail.

The commercial confidentitality is, as they say in the guidance, defined 
in FOI law. They are basically saying that you should use FOI law to 
determine what you publish. That sounds right to me.

I wasn't meeting to talk about the transparency standards, but as I was 
there I thought I would mention it. I didn't push to get better stardards, 
but did disucss what was usable and confirmed that whole lines of data can 
be redacted and that it isn't necessary to say that those lines have been 
removed.

On Wed, 6 Oct 2010, Anna Powell-Smith wrote:

> Did you get any sense that they have plans to adapt the guidelines in the
> near future?
>
> The guidance on commercial confidentiality is the most important point.
>
> We could maybe get round points 1 and 2 by asking departments for their
> internal charts of expense types and how (if at all) they map to PSPES.
>
> On 6 October 2010 11:14, Lisa Evans <lisa.evans at okfn.org> wrote:
>
>> I met Karren Sanderson, one of the authors of the guideline, on Monday.
>>
>> No they didn't ask our advice on it.
>> I think in future they will.
>>
>> On Tue, 5 Oct 2010, Anna Powell-Smith wrote:
>>
>>  Just been looking at the Treasury guidelines for the forthcoming
>>> departmental spending releases [1], and several things seem disappointing.
>>>
>>> 1. Prescriptive structure of 9 columns, with only 1 column for 'expense
>>> type' - so we can't use our bubble viz, with no hierarchy of
>>> classifications. Why not have 8 columns + an arbitrary number of 'expense
>>> type' columns at the end?
>>>
>>> 2. No requirement for standard classifications using e.g. PSPES, so hard
>>> to
>>> compare across departments. OK, they want to get the data out fast, but if
>>> some departments use both PSPES and internal expense types (as DCLG seemed
>>> to in their 2009 release) would be nice to have both. Because the
>>> structure
>>> is so prescriptive, looks like departments won't include this.
>>>
>>> 3. Permissible redactions include: "Potential betrayal of a commercial
>>> confidence, or prejudice to a legitimate commercial interest". This is
>>> part
>>> of FOIA, but the Local Data Panel guidance to councils warned: "Very rare
>>> and will need to be justified". No such guidance here.
>>>
>>> Did HMT ask us for any advice when writing this document?
>>>
>>> [1] http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/transparency_spend_over25100910.pdf
>>> [2] http://data.gov.uk/blog/local-spending-data-guidance
>>>
>>>
>