Local spend explorer

Published data is only useful if it is accessible to its intended audience. While a primary use of linked data is for client software to query, fetch and combine the data we also need to make it directly accessible to end users. Sometimes this accessibility is simply there to help developers understand the data better in order to be able to exploit it. Other times the fundamental purpose publication is to inform people. For example, in pursuing its transparency agenda the UK government's primary goal is to enable citizens to be better informed. So as part of our work on publication of local government payments we were keen to show that linked data can support user interfaces that enable people to explore the data directly.

To this end we partnered with Unit4, the leading supplier of financial information systems to UK local authorities. Unit4, with our support, developed tooling to export local authority spend records directly as linked data using the payments ontology. As well as making this data available for download or query we provide a graphical user interface to enable people to view the data as tables or charts and to drill down to particular spend categories or particular suppliers.

This is made possible through the use of the linked data API. The API provides a REST-style interface to allow javascript code running in the browser to easily fetch and present the relevant data slices. As more and more data becomes available in linked form the need for user-friendly presentation techniques that can exploit the unique advantages of linked data will continue to grow. If you have requirements in this area then please contact us.