Ideas

Ideas and Suggestions

This is a summary of the ideas and suggestions we’ve had or been suggested by the community. Please proposes new ideas or let us know what you think of these existing ones (for example their relative importance) by adding a comment.

1. Improve the existing prototype

Improve the existing prototype in a variety of ways most notably by dejargonizing the data, improving the transition between different “views”, and removing some of the sharp edges in the interface mentioned by yourself and others.

2. Get (lots) more data

There’s almost a limitless amount of work to be done here — eventually we’d like to have spending information down to the very lowest project and geographic level — but to start with we’re thinking of:

  • The departmental spending breakdowns in the “supplementary budget information” documents (all pdf unfortunately)
  • Data on government (tax) revenue (this has been suggested several times here already!). BTW: this is an area where we’d particularly welcome volunteer participation!

3. Develop more visualizations/interfaces to the data

Develop other, even simpler, “ways into” the data. We really want to present this information in a way that is easy for everyone to use and understand (At the moment we think we’re still a way from that at the moment). For example:

  • Personalization: really show where does my money go by personalizing expenditure analyses to show the breakdown of where my tax goes (based on my income and/or locality …)
  • Comparisons: Allow comparison of spending between different regions or entities (e.g. departments), or between parties

4. Backend data store with API

A proper backend data store so that others can easily access and reuse this data. We don’t want to be the only ones using and visualizing the material we collect.

5. Community Participation

Allow for users of the tool to share easily their comments and discoveries. This can be: * As simple as allowing embedding and/or deep-linking of visualizations on user’s own sites. * Or something more sophisticated like an integrated annotation system.

  • Tony Robinson

    This website is called “Where Does My Money Go?”. So it would be useful if you could type in your annual salary and see a visualisation of how much you paid in tax and where it went.

    This would have a bigger impact for an individual than sums in the billions and millions, which are just numbers.

    Make it personal…

    • http://blog.okfn.org/ Rufus Pollock

      Tony: you’re absolutely right. We’d actually discussed this quite a bit while building the prototype but didn’t have the time or resources to implement it but its a top priority for the next stage of work. The list above has been amended to make this really clear.

  • http://None Tony Robinson

    This website is called “Where Does My Money Go?”. So it would be useful if you could type in your annual salary and see a visualisation of how much you paid in tax and where it went.

    This would have a bigger impact for an individual than sums in the billions and millions, which are just numbers.

    Make it personal…

    • http://blog.okfn.org/ Rufus Pollock

      Tony: you’re absolutely right. We’d actually discussed this quite a bit while building the prototype but didn’t have the time or resources to implement it but its a top priority for the next stage of work. The list above has been amended to make this really clear.

  • Andy

    It would be useful to see where the money has come from, for each geographical area, eg business taxes, income taxes, govt borrowing, then you would be able to see which parts of the UK are paying their way and which are not, and how much the govt is borrowing to buy votes.

    • http://www.archerystore.webeden.co.uk Mark the Archer

      I agree with your commpents and enclosed some further information on this: INCOME TAX £157 Bn NATIONAL INSURANCE £98 Bn VAT £83 Bn CORPORATION TAX £45 Bn EXCISE DUTY £42 Bn BUSINESS RATES £23 Bn COUNCIL TAX £25 Bn OTHER (unspecific) £73 Bn TOTAL FOR 2008 £546 Bn

      2009 looks like £496 Bn because of the un- employment situation so reciepts are down, but still the last government insist in raising VAT, National Insurance Contributions by 1% when we already contribute some 24%, making it 25% of employer/employee subs. The price of democracy is constant vigilance and looking behind the glossy political words. MP’s of course, are quite safe with their self regulating salaries, expenses and extra pensions, most will retire or leave with £1 million each severance pay. Unlike most of us. Did I mention basic state pensions being the lowest in Europe at 19% of average wage, when there is a SURPLUS of £58 Bn in the NI Fund not being used to improve BSP’s to the recommended £165 pw ( Currently £97 pw and not sufficient to live on, even most have saved for 50 years to receive it). Before you moan, pensioners, bah humbug! Remember, you will all be pensioners in less than 30 years and todays pensioners are fighting big government for all of us!

      • Mark the Archer

        Further to the “pie chart” issue on government income vs expenditure, taking that we cannot have any trust in the last government to speak the truth. I found the H.M. Treasury Pre-Budget Report 2008 entitled “SUPPORTING PEOPLE THROUGH DIFFICULT TIMES” – there is “pie chart” ref Where Tax Payers Money is Spent vs Government reciepts. One can imagine, with £545 Bn tax receipts, how can we be in debt? Answers on a postcard please to Mr Brown.

  • http://Website Andy

    It would be useful to see where the money has come from, for each geographical area, eg business taxes, income taxes, govt borrowing, then you would be able to see which parts of the UK are paying their way and which are not, and how much the govt is borrowing to buy votes.

    • http://www.archerystore.webeden.co.uk Mark the Archer

      I agree with your commpents and enclosed some further information on this: INCOME TAX £157 Bn NATIONAL INSURANCE £98 Bn VAT £83 Bn CORPORATION TAX £45 Bn EXCISE DUTY £42 Bn BUSINESS RATES £23 Bn COUNCIL TAX £25 Bn OTHER (unspecific) £73 Bn TOTAL FOR 2008 £546 Bn

      2009 looks like £496 Bn because of the un- employment situation so reciepts are down, but still the last government insist in raising VAT, National Insurance Contributions by 1% when we already contribute some 24%, making it 25% of employer/employee subs. The price of democracy is constant vigilance and looking behind the glossy political words. MP’s of course, are quite safe with their self regulating salaries, expenses and extra pensions, most will retire or leave with £1 million each severance pay. Unlike most of us. Did I mention basic state pensions being the lowest in Europe at 19% of average wage, when there is a SURPLUS of £58 Bn in the NI Fund not being used to improve BSP’s to the recommended £165 pw ( Currently £97 pw and not sufficient to live on, even most have saved for 50 years to receive it). Before you moan, pensioners, bah humbug! Remember, you will all be pensioners in less than 30 years and todays pensioners are fighting big government for all of us!

      • http://None Mark the Archer

        Further to the “pie chart” issue on government income vs expenditure, taking that we cannot have any trust in the last government to speak the truth. I found the H.M. Treasury Pre-Budget Report 2008 entitled “SUPPORTING PEOPLE THROUGH DIFFICULT TIMES” – there is “pie chart” ref Where Tax Payers Money is Spent vs Government reciepts. One can imagine, with £545 Bn tax receipts, how can we be in debt? Answers on a postcard please to Mr Brown.

  • http://blog.okfn.org/ Rufus Pollock

    Andy: that’s a nice idea. You can already do regional comparisons of government spending in the current prototype but it doesn’t have any income information.

  • http://blog.okfn.org/ Rufus Pollock

    Andy: that’s a nice idea. You can already do regional comparisons of government spending in the current prototype but it doesn’t have any income information.

  • Stuart Fotheringham

    I’ve seen other comments saying the same, but I would like to see debt and service of debt as a top level category.

    I like Andy’s comment above about a ‘sources’ and ‘uses’ approach, a cash flow of ‘where from’ to ‘where to’.

    • http://blog.okfn.org lisa

      Hi Stuart,

      The top level categories in our display are taken from the United Nations (UN) classifications of the functions of governments. These functions are described here:

      http://unstats.un.org/unsd/cr/registry/regcst.asp?Cl=4

      You make a very good observation that people are interested in debt. Although we won’t be changing the top level categories, as this would make them inconsistent with the classification system, we are investigating data sets to show debt in more detail for future versions of ‘where does my money go’.

      We also like the idea of ‘sources’ and ‘uses’ and the flow, and are using concepts like this in our data model.

      Thank you for your comment,

      Lisa

  • http://Website Stuart Fotheringham

    I’ve seen other comments saying the same, but I would like to see debt and service of debt as a top level category.

    I like Andy’s comment above about a ‘sources’ and ‘uses’ approach, a cash flow of ‘where from’ to ‘where to’.

    • http://blog.okfn.org lisa

      Hi Stuart,

      The top level categories in our display are taken from the United Nations (UN) classifications of the functions of governments. These functions are described here:

      http://unstats.un.org/unsd/cr/registry/regcst.asp?Cl=4

      You make a very good observation that people are interested in debt. Although we won’t be changing the top level categories, as this would make them inconsistent with the classification system, we are investigating data sets to show debt in more detail for future versions of ‘where does my money go’.

      We also like the idea of ‘sources’ and ‘uses’ and the flow, and are using concepts like this in our data model.

      Thank you for your comment,

      Lisa

  • http://kitengland.wordpress.com Kit England

    I’ve already sent a quick email querying this, but I think it would be amazing if you could make the kind of methodology/source code available, or host the ability for it to use different datasets. I work in Local Government and a number of officers/members have said that this would be something they would find beneficial for our own spending. However, there are limits to excel’s capabilities….

    • http://blog.okfn.org lisa

      Hi Kit,

      That would be a great outcome of this project — if government departments loaded their own data for display in the visualisation.

      I’m very keen to know what kinds of data departments would like to visualise and if they have samples of that data, so we can design our data model with this in mind.

      Thank you for making this very useful comment,

      Lisa

  • http://kitengland.wordpress.com Kit England

    I’ve already sent a quick email querying this, but I think it would be amazing if you could make the kind of methodology/source code available, or host the ability for it to use different datasets. I work in Local Government and a number of officers/members have said that this would be something they would find beneficial for our own spending. However, there are limits to excel’s capabilities….

    • http://blog.okfn.org lisa

      Hi Kit,

      That would be a great outcome of this project — if government departments loaded their own data for display in the visualisation.

      I’m very keen to know what kinds of data departments would like to visualise and if they have samples of that data, so we can design our data model with this in mind.

      Thank you for making this very useful comment,

      Lisa

  • http://markharrison.wordpress.com Mark Harrison

    The question of “where’s the debt” seems to have come up several times.

    I understand why you want to leave the UNSD classess unchanged, however from a visualisation perspective, there’s a possible solution that would respect this, and solve the general problem.

    The top right hand “tick-boxes diagram” currently reads:

    • Social Protection
    • Health
    • Education
    • General Public Services
    • …

    Perhaps there is space to include not only the category title, but the biggest sub-category, the first word from the second sub-category and some elipses, so it would appear as:

    • Social Protection (Old age, Sickness…)
    • Health (Medical Services, Central…)
    • Education (Pre-Primary and Primary, Secondary…)
    • General Public Services (Public Debt Transactions, Executive…)

    I realise that it’s not an ideal solution, and might look “wrong” once done, but it strikes me as a good way to get the word “debt” (which appears to be the one that people are looking for) onto the front page of the prototype without needing to hunt through the hover text…

    Regards,

    Mark

  • http://markharrison.wordpress.com Mark Harrison

    The question of “where’s the debt” seems to have come up several times.

    I understand why you want to leave the UNSD classess unchanged, however from a visualisation perspective, there’s a possible solution that would respect this, and solve the general problem.

    The top right hand “tick-boxes diagram” currently reads:

    • Social Protection
    • Health
    • Education
    • General Public Services
    • …

    Perhaps there is space to include not only the category title, but the biggest sub-category, the first word from the second sub-category and some elipses, so it would appear as:

    • Social Protection (Old age, Sickness…)
    • Health (Medical Services, Central…)
    • Education (Pre-Primary and Primary, Secondary…)
    • General Public Services (Public Debt Transactions, Executive…)

    I realise that it’s not an ideal solution, and might look “wrong” once done, but it strikes me as a good way to get the word “debt” (which appears to be the one that people are looking for) onto the front page of the prototype without needing to hunt through the hover text…

    Regards,

    Mark

  • David Corke

    There is a considerable amount of overlay when you try to follow the numbers for each category. A larger (full screen option) would be helpful and the subset smaller circles made more identifiable so that there contents can be found and read. It may be because of difficulty following all of the numbers, but it does seem that the categories listed “only” add up to £595bn rather than the £620bn quoted as the total. Would it be possible to present the data as a table, i.e. ten (or perhaps 11 with whatever the additional £25bn was for) columns, with the make up in each column below. Otherwise, a very welcome addition to making government spending visible.

  • http://Website David Corke

    There is a considerable amount of overlay when you try to follow the numbers for each category. A larger (full screen option) would be helpful and the subset smaller circles made more identifiable so that there contents can be found and read. It may be because of difficulty following all of the numbers, but it does seem that the categories listed “only” add up to £595bn rather than the £620bn quoted as the total. Would it be possible to present the data as a table, i.e. ten (or perhaps 11 with whatever the additional £25bn was for) columns, with the make up in each column below. Otherwise, a very welcome addition to making government spending visible.

  • Colin Laurie

    Brilliant Website. I would imagine that the – Regional/Overview/Spending per Capita indexed, % deviation from national spending – view is the most helpful and instructive. That is if one compares spending of London to that of e.g. South East [which is so close to the political centre]. You would not expect to see huge variances above 10% in a well run and established “democracy” without good reason (i.e. Public Order). You need a few “tool tips” to show: how to vary the years shown with the mouse/arrow keys, what the spending headings comprise – at a lower level, If a spending heading trends to zero it will not identify itself! F1 on any screen should give an example of what to look for. I.e. as above “Compare London average spend to your own region; move the year slider to show annual trends” “Be shocked at London’s on-going appropriation of most of it!”

  • http://N/A Colin Laurie

    Brilliant Website. I would imagine that the – Regional/Overview/Spending per Capita indexed, % deviation from national spending – view is the most helpful and instructive. That is if one compares spending of London to that of e.g. South East [which is so close to the political centre]. You would not expect to see huge variances above 10% in a well run and established “democracy” without good reason (i.e. Public Order). You need a few “tool tips” to show: how to vary the years shown with the mouse/arrow keys, what the spending headings comprise – at a lower level, If a spending heading trends to zero it will not identify itself! F1 on any screen should give an example of what to look for. I.e. as above “Compare London average spend to your own region; move the year slider to show annual trends” “Be shocked at London’s on-going appropriation of most of it!”