Why we need to unlock Charities data now.
I just learned that The Charities Commission are refusing to properly open their data. This is this very bad news for the public and you should immediately add your vote to have this data unlocked. Can you just go and do it now, before you forget.That's the short version, the long version follows, and right at the end is another link to the same unlocking service for you to add your voice. Amidst the public clamour to put out council spending data, and the mutterings and dealings about taxonomies and controlled lists - is the realisation that all this information is a lot less useful if you cannot de-reference any of it. Take this simple example.Payment: £1,500
Date: 1 Apr 2010
To: Company ASelf-describing data can be de-referenced, so imagine that record could have read more like:Payment-period: 2010-01-01 - 2010-03-31
Payment-date: 2010-04-01
Payment-amount: 1,500.00 UKP
To: companieshouse .website.com /Company_A_Ltd_details
Alternative URL companieshouse .website.com/123456789 As you can see in my very much simplified example the former recipient Company A is none of the following entities:
Alternative URL charities. data .website.com /987654321Slight meander ... If you have ever sat in a meeting where County and District Council staff and/or members have discussed the handling of grants you will know what I mean.The political horse-trading, posturing and deals that are done can be at once farcical, shocking and bewildering. Sometimes it all seems to be about fighting for your corner, making sure your departments' name is associated with the grant, augmenting your budget if you can. The decisions that pop out often seem random unless seen in true light of powerful alliances, political stances and creative accounting. I sometimes tried to imagine the paper trail of this money. If you ever need to launder a large amount of cash, surely earmarking it for grants would make it untraceable. My favourite question was always "... but where is this money coming from?" "The Department of x" would invariably be the reply, "Yes, but where do they get it from?" "Well, the GOVERNMENT stupid!" - "but where do THEY ...." ad nauseum. They stopped inviting me after a while.I have no idea how much a £500 grant for the Scout hut roof actually costs the public in administrative costs, but the cost in biscuits alone must be tremendous. (I remember a meeting once where the first 10 minutes was taken up with discussing which department's budget was going to be charged for the tea and coffee, we were 8 in the room - so scoff ye not) I have this mental picture of what how this should work. Its like a simple straight pipe, money in at one end, money out to the recipients at the other, like fresh water. Instead we have something resembling a broken digestive system, it twists and turns as more and more departments need to rinse their fingers in the stream as it passes. They need to break its fall, let it collect in stagnant pockets for a while, go a bit rank, then pass it on 'cause its "the end of the financial year", or some more money is flowing in so "we need to spend it, like now, before the end of the month!" "We've got some money we could use for that" a phrase always guaranteed to infuriate me.The point at lastThe administration of grants is an expensive and time-consuming process which could be improved by Government giving directly to many more charities, or at least giving it directly to Town and Parish Councils. Ultimately that wasted expense is reducing the amount of cash being given to the Charities. Opening up Charities data as Linked Open Data (LOD) will help shed light upon the administrative process, as charities can be linked to payments (and vice-versa). Many of the smaller payments will not appear anywhere unless Town and Parish Councils publish their spending data also.The likes of Adrian Short (Armchair Auditor) and Chris Taggart (OpenlyLocal) are trying to expose and de-reference Local Government payment details by supplier in order to move forward the examples of open data. This requires both company details and charity details to be de-referenced, by them, and others like them to link to unique and permanent URLs.as I have described above.We have been promised that companies data will be opened up as a priority - we similarly need charity data to be opened too. I want to de-reference companies and charities because they are also employers who feature in my JobsGoLocal job vacancy data streams.I and others are going to need either a local copy of charities data, or a robust end point which serves this data. Wouldn't it be better if you were able to see the details of the employer - especially if they are a charity - or horrors, if they are claiming to be a charity, as you were browsing the job vacancies?So, please sign up to get this data released and blog about or retweet this message - hat tip to Tom Szekeres for kicking the idea off.
Date: 1 Apr 2010
To: Company ASelf-describing data can be de-referenced, so imagine that record could have read more like:Payment-period: 2010-01-01 - 2010-03-31
Payment-date: 2010-04-01
Payment-amount: 1,500.00 UKP
To: companieshouse .website.com /Company_A_Ltd_details
Alternative URL companieshouse .website.com/123456789 As you can see in my very much simplified example the former recipient Company A is none of the following entities:
- Company A PLC
- Company A Holdings
- Company A (Jersey) LTD
- Company A and sons
- Company A
Alternative URL charities. data .website.com /987654321Slight meander ... If you have ever sat in a meeting where County and District Council staff and/or members have discussed the handling of grants you will know what I mean.The political horse-trading, posturing and deals that are done can be at once farcical, shocking and bewildering. Sometimes it all seems to be about fighting for your corner, making sure your departments' name is associated with the grant, augmenting your budget if you can. The decisions that pop out often seem random unless seen in true light of powerful alliances, political stances and creative accounting. I sometimes tried to imagine the paper trail of this money. If you ever need to launder a large amount of cash, surely earmarking it for grants would make it untraceable. My favourite question was always "... but where is this money coming from?" "The Department of x" would invariably be the reply, "Yes, but where do they get it from?" "Well, the GOVERNMENT stupid!" - "but where do THEY ...." ad nauseum. They stopped inviting me after a while.I have no idea how much a £500 grant for the Scout hut roof actually costs the public in administrative costs, but the cost in biscuits alone must be tremendous. (I remember a meeting once where the first 10 minutes was taken up with discussing which department's budget was going to be charged for the tea and coffee, we were 8 in the room - so scoff ye not) I have this mental picture of what how this should work. Its like a simple straight pipe, money in at one end, money out to the recipients at the other, like fresh water. Instead we have something resembling a broken digestive system, it twists and turns as more and more departments need to rinse their fingers in the stream as it passes. They need to break its fall, let it collect in stagnant pockets for a while, go a bit rank, then pass it on 'cause its "the end of the financial year", or some more money is flowing in so "we need to spend it, like now, before the end of the month!" "We've got some money we could use for that" a phrase always guaranteed to infuriate me.The point at lastThe administration of grants is an expensive and time-consuming process which could be improved by Government giving directly to many more charities, or at least giving it directly to Town and Parish Councils. Ultimately that wasted expense is reducing the amount of cash being given to the Charities. Opening up Charities data as Linked Open Data (LOD) will help shed light upon the administrative process, as charities can be linked to payments (and vice-versa). Many of the smaller payments will not appear anywhere unless Town and Parish Councils publish their spending data also.The likes of Adrian Short (Armchair Auditor) and Chris Taggart (OpenlyLocal) are trying to expose and de-reference Local Government payment details by supplier in order to move forward the examples of open data. This requires both company details and charity details to be de-referenced, by them, and others like them to link to unique and permanent URLs.as I have described above.We have been promised that companies data will be opened up as a priority - we similarly need charity data to be opened too. I want to de-reference companies and charities because they are also employers who feature in my JobsGoLocal job vacancy data streams.I and others are going to need either a local copy of charities data, or a robust end point which serves this data. Wouldn't it be better if you were able to see the details of the employer - especially if they are a charity - or horrors, if they are claiming to be a charity, as you were browsing the job vacancies?So, please sign up to get this data released and blog about or retweet this message - hat tip to Tom Szekeres for kicking the idea off.
