Official Statistics

Government grants statistics development plan

Updated 27 August 2021

1. Background

1.1 Purpose of this document

Cabinet Office and the Government Grants Management Function (GGMF) are committed to the ongoing review and improvement of its published statistics to ensure they are of the highest quality and public value. As part of this commitment, we (GGMF) will publish ongoing statistics development plans.

We aim to continually improve the quality, trustworthiness and value of the Government Grants Statistics publication. This development plan explains how we intend to do this.

1.2 The Government Grants Register and Government Grant Statistics

Government is committed to increasing transparency, enabling taxpayers to hold the state to account both on how their money is being spent and how decisions are made which affect their lives.

To meet this commitment, we publish Government Grants Statistics which includes:

The Government Grants Register - a dataset of grant spending across government; covering general and formula grants at both scheme and award level.

The Government Grants Statistics Bulletin - This document explains and contextualises the published grants data. Published alongside this bulletin is a set of statistical tables, displaying all figures used in the report in a more accessible format. The previous data release for financial year 2018 to 2019 data was accompanied by a landscape report. This document is similar, but is now published in line with the UKSA Code of Practice for Statistics.

1.3 Statistical classification

Government Grants Statistics are published as experimental statistics for the first time in 2021. Experimental statistics are a subset of newly developed or innovative official statistics that are undergoing evaluation. Previous publications were published as transparency data, except financial year 2018 to 2019 which was published as management information. We are currently working towards removing the experimental label in future publications.

2. Development Plan

The following is a list of GGMF’s actions to improve these statistics to date and expected actions over the next year.

2.1 Measures taken to improve the publication and underlying data

2.2 Improving this publication

GGMF has taken the following measures to improve the grants statistics publication:

• For the first time, classified the publication as Official Statistics, and adhered to the UKSA Code of Practice for Statistics. Labelled these statistics as Experimental Statistics to highlight the need and expectation of ongoing development.
• Published the Government Grants Statistics bulletin alongside the dataset, to help users to better understand the data and the grants context.
• Announced the publication date 4 weeks in advance and ensured resources were in place to meet that date.
• Adhered to pre-release access requirements of the Code of Practice for Statistics.
• Published additional supporting documentation to explain limitations/caveats of the data.
• Worked to understand our users:
  • Reviewed the feedback gathered through the user consultation released as part of the last publication.
  • One known user of grants data is 360Giving who provide an open data standard for grants data. GGMF has engaged with 360Giving throughout the production of these statistics to ensure that the published awards data meet this standard, and will continue to ensure we meet this requirement in future publications.
• Produced and published this document to demonstrate our compliance with the Code of Practice for Statistics.

2.3 Improving the grants data

GGMF has taken the following measures to improve the underlying grants data:

• Created, alongside departments, a comprehensive Government Grants Data Standard that specifies the data required.
• Published a description of the data standard for government grants within the government grants register.
• Created an automated process for highlighting data quality issues to departments, thereby feeding back these issues to departments on a regular basis during data collection.
• Provided additional analytical assistance to departments to improve data quality and completeness.
• Deduplicated our recipient database - by identifying organisations that we are confident are duplicated and combining their data - thereby facilitating more accurate recipient level analysis.
• Complete a thorough review of the quality and completeness of grants data already published for previous years. This data has now been restructured on gov.uk, to make it clearer to users how each dataset can be used.
• Republished 2017 to 2018 data to 360Giving Standard. This was done by correcting minor formatting and identifier issues.
• Produced a reproducible analytical pipeline (RAP) for the process of getting from the data to the publication using the coding language Python. We have also further automated many of our quality assurance processes.
• Collected and published awards for formula schemes for the first time.

2.4 What we will do

In order to improve this publication in future, we plan to:

• Launch the new version of GGIS for use by departments. (April 2021)
• Include automated audit trails in the new version of GGIS to allow us to track any changes to the data, and monitor ongoing quality and completeness improvements. (April 2021)
• As part of the new version of GGIS, include data from external data sources (such as companies house and charities commission) to verify the our grant recipient data and ensure greater consistency in future. (April 2021)
• Work alongside government departments, 360 Giving and other identified users to develop GGIS and the underlying Government Grants Data Standard to ensure that they continue to meet user needs. (Ongoing)
• Work towards removing the experimental statistics label for future publications. (March 2022) This will include:
  • Announcing the publication month 1 year in advance. (March 2021)
  • Continuing to engage with users of the data and the GSS Good Practice Team and integrate further feedback. (Ongoing)
  • Using the new version of GGIS as a more consistent and higher quality data source for the next publication. (March 2022)
• Provide training to and engage with department users regarding GGIS and the new data standard. (Ongoing)
• Develop specific plans with individual departments where needed, to ensure they can continue to meet these data requirements and improve data quality. (Ongoing)