Department of Finance Departmental Spend Dataset Publication

The Open Data Strategy for Northern Ireland 2020 - 2023 commits the Northern Ireland Civil Service to greater transparency in fiscal matters.

To that end the Open Data Team have been working with colleagues from the Department of Finance and AccountNI on a pilot project to examine how best to address the challenge.

Following a presentation to a meeting of NICS Finance Directors the decision was taken to publish details of Departmental spend above the value of £25,000 onto the OpenDataNI web portal.This plan aligns with work that has been carried out by Departments in the GB civil service.

Over the last months Department of Finance staff have been working to create a report to be published onto ODNI detailing spend information.

To mark the commencement of the new financial year in April 2022, that month's spend has been published and can be accessed on the portal. This will be an ongoing process with a new publication each month detailing the Department's spend above £25,000.

Following this pilot, the Open Data team in the next months will be liaising with Finance teams in the remaining Departments to arrange for them to begin publishing their respective spend data onto OpenDataNI.