2.8 Standardising data enables comparative analysis. The Government has provided guidance on the various standard data releases to encourage common structures. One example is HM Treasury guidance on monthly itemised spending data, which specifies content and provides direction on the timing of release, redactions, internal review processes and data hosting arrangements. Mandatory content includes correctly formatted dates, amounts, expense types and suppliers.
2.9 Departments have complied with most mandatory elements of this guidance. Of 100 departmental spend data sets we reviewed, 78 per cent of the mandatory data fields were fully compliant. The vast majority of non-compliant fields related to formatting issues. Other non-compliance related to expense types and expense areas not being easily understood, hindering comparative analysis.
2.10 According to Treasury guidance, spend data should be published by the last working day of the month following the month to which the data relates. However, by the end of 2011, 11 of 17 departments had not published data for November 2011 and seven had not yet published the spend data for October 2011.
2.11 From September 2011, the updated guidance requires departments to include brief plain English descriptions explaining the purpose of all transactions, to give more contextual information. In the December 2011 releases, 8 of 11 departments included a description field in some form in their releases but only four fully met the plain English requirement by providing a clear description of all items listed.4