Coins request rejected by Treasury
For several months I have been trying to get access to the Treasury's Coins database - the Combined Online Information System - which contains a detailed analysis of state expenditure.
I'm not the only one who would like to see this information. For a start there's George Osborne, who may or may not soon be in a position to give effect to his wish.
And as well, there's the data campaigner Julian Todd who's been using whatdotheyknow, the Open Knowledge Foundation which also aims to open up state data, and the excellent Guardian datablog, which last week reported "hints" that the government was about to make Coins accessible to the public.
Well, if they are opening it up, they're not doing so to me. Last September the Treasury rejected my freedom-of-information request for the contents of the database. Now they have just dismissed [1.63MB PDF] my appeal against that decision.
Amongst other reasons the Treasury maintains that this is necessary to protect intellectual property rights and commercial confidentiality, that already published data is more meaningful, and that some of the material is protected by specific exemptions.
It also argues that the Treasury's work would be disrupted by "misinterpretation of the 23 million lines of raw and unvalidated data" and by "a high volume of follow-up requests and enquiries".
However it did send me a schema of field headers, which is already available here. I am now taking the case to the information commissioner.
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"It also argues that the Treasury's work would be disrupted by "misinterpretation of the 23 million lines of raw and unvalidated data" and by "a high volume of follow-up requests and enquiries"."
I don't remember an exemption along these lines in the legislation.
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Government computing is a disaster zone (see today's news story from the audit office.) So to suggest that having accesses to error filled data is somehow worthwhile is short-sighted isn't it?
Let me relate a little (true) story: A few years ago the trade statistics for a particular commodity looked astonishing. So I pottered down to Customs and Excise and started digging. (The commodity was fans, electrical, computer cooling). Sure enough it took about half an hour to find that fans, hand waving had been misclassified. A 40 foot container containing folding paper fans from Mali was the culprit. Anyway, it threw out the statistics by a factor of ten, but until I had bothered to check nobody thought anything was wrong.
The point of the story is that when nonsenses like the fans story took place in a paper system, it was possible to drill down into the data today that is simply not possible due the entirely defective way the government runs, and procures, its computers.
PS 23 million lines of data seems far too small for raw data? Doesn't COINS data consist of summaries - you really need details of every item of expenditure down to the pennies - the full text of the description, and all related data, but even then you will be stuck with the fan's Mali paper and Fans, computer cooling problem. It is all garbage in and and garbage out (c.f. the NHS summary patient record system and, heaven forfend, the ID database!) The Government does not understand the need for data quality!
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The agrument is that contributions by business interest have no impact of policy or contractual decisions. Now you wish to show that by some circumstances and coincidences that some large donors also have large government contracts or developments and infrastructure happens to be on ajoining properties and things like that....purely coincidence. You have to be able to see the big picture...the one they keep out of focus.
Government had its orgins of establishment for the protection of the people.....look how far we have come..protecting business from the people.
It would be interesting to see the amount of waivered or deferred or credited taxes for business in a year. Later maybe total governmental infrastructure costs assoicated with business development...Mainly the profit is private in private big business.
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#2 continued
Today (Sunday 11 April) it is announced that the NHS organ donor database is so full of errors that people are having the wrong bits ripped out after death...
This is yet another example of the Government's inability to understand that in order to give any credence what-so-ever to databases the data subjects must be asked to approve the data and have the absolute unfettered right to change any data that they wish to, without question.
The other enormously problematic database is the Summary Records Database of the NHS - we are not being shown the data - it will be wrong and lives will be lost - all because of the arrogance and ignorance of civil servants and politicians! These poor dolts will actually be killing people. It is not about opting out of the database because the data accuracy basics (see above) are missing - even if you opt out or stay in you may still get someone-else's wrong data applied to you and you could be unconscious at the time!
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John of H.
Think positive...the wrong bits are being torn off AFTER death..think of the possibilities. Rather have some bad data than let's say a third eye.
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Martin,
They cannot tell you because they don't know. They just pretend to know and to be secretive, because that way they don't look incompetent.
Keep up the excellent work!
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What's the problem?
Didn't Cameron promise "immediate access" to COINS if he was elected? Is he using the Coalition as an excuse, or has he just forgotten? Perhaps he simply needs a little nudge; so, nudge him.
The public needs to know about promises not kept.
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