British Gov't Releases Spending Data

An anonymous reader writes "In a move sure to have transparency activists salivating, the UK government has released some 195,000 lines of data detailing its financial outgoings. The BBC reports that 'All spending of more than £25,000 made between May and September was published — in line with a pre-election commitment by the Conservatives — although some departments also published spending over £500. People are being encouraged to pick through the enormous quantity of online information to spot waste and hold ministers to account.'"

Comments

Already being examined

[lsproc]

There are already sites picking through it (such as http://www.wheredoesmymoneygo.org/ and quite a few surprising entries have already cropped up, such as the massive amount Capita got, but you actually have to know what you want to look for if your going to find anything meaningful.

Re:No one actually checks the data

[Samantha Wright]

You could argue that this works to the best interest of the releasers—after all, this is something the government are doing themselves, not a leak.

Re:Is to much data a good thing

[Marcika]

well, very few people will actually go thru it; those who do are highly motivated - either paid searchers, hired, by say the brit equivalent of the Koch brothers, or cranks, or whatever What ever they find, most of it will be unkown unless published by the media

The UK equivalent of the Kochs are the Barclay brothers, and they own the media (at least the parts not already owned by Murdoch or the Rothschilds). Their paid searchers occasionally dig up some really interesting material... The 2009 UK parliamentary expenses scandal, for instance, was a nice scoop for the Barclay Brothers' Daily Telegraph...

Re:The way to go

[mister_dave]

Yeah, there is no value in professional auditors with experience in spotting sophisticated fraudulent activity.

Well, they don't seem to have made any impact at the EU!

Re:The way to go

[Anonymous Coward]

First off, give a better link than the Daily Mail if you want anyone to take you seriously. Second, you linked to an article about professional auditors finding fraud and waste, not exactly backing your argument too well there.

Re:News For Nerds Please

[TheRaven64]

Actually, they switched from plural to singular and back again. Data is the plural form, the singular is datum.