The data is sourced from the financial accounting systems of public sector bodies

The data used for spotlightonspend is historical spend data, which is what has actually been spent; not the budget. Every public body has a financial management system to enable the finance officers to pay the companies that provide the goods and services, and to prepare financial statements and reports. Designed by accountants for accounting purposes these financial management systems do not present information that the public would find interesting or useful. In fact they usually don’t even have enough data to help a professional buyer of goods and services in the public sector. This is not a criticism of the public sector; the same is true in the private sector. Financial reporting systems are designed to work for financial management not purchasing.

Once the data is useful for professional buyers making it transparent is a small extra hop

Once data has been categorised for buyers to help them make sensible purchasing decisions, it is relatively simple to turn that data into useful information for the public.

spotlightonspend data is just the tip of the iceberg

Much like an iceberg where only one-tenth of its volume is above water, the same is true of the data presented in the spotlightonspend online spending report.. You are only seeing the tip. Nine-tenths of the effort is below the surface. Transforming raw financial data into something that is accessible, relevant and of value to the intended audience takes a lot of work.

Different public bodies have different systems storing data differently

To make data consistent the following issues need to be resolved:

• When an order is placed with a supplier the description entered is usually insufficient to enable meaningful and detailed analysis of what was actually purchased. For example,
• The invoices received from suppliers are not often recorded in a way that makes it easy to group together suppliers of the same type of goods and services. Without this information you can’t tell the total amount spent on something. For example without classifying utility you can’t see how much was spent in total on light and power?
• The only data stored about a supplier is enough to make secure delivery of the good or services and make payments. Extra information which might help identify the type of supplier more closely is not stored. For example, the number of employees or the number of locations. Without this information it is difficult to see whether the public body is spending with local companies or SMEs and achieving policy goals.
• The majority of the payments made by a public body have nothing to do with the purchase of goods & services but instead relate to payroll or grants. However all payments are stored in the same system, so it can make it difficult to separate quickly specific goods and services.
• Each public body’s financial management system has similarities with other public bodies, but when it comes to delivering meaningful visibility of spending on goods & services there are significant differences that mean that it is difficult to make like-for-like comparisons. This means it is difficult to compare one council’s spending with another and see which is more efficient.
• A centrally managed electronic register of current contracts with those suppliers that have formal contracts is the exception rather than the rule. A small minority of public bodies have implemented contract management systems, some have contract registers (a simpler form of contract management system), some have collated contracts in either an Access database or Excel spreadsheet but the majority have no contract system of any type in place. Without some form of centrally managed electronic register providing public access to existing contracts (even in summary form) meaningful contract visibility would be impossible.