GIST: New online tool that lets you find out where your taxes go
The Government has opened up its books to taxpayers in a bid to be more transparent via an interactive portal. But is it really any good at dissecting public spending?
A new online tool has been launched by the Cabinet Office which breaks down how taxpayers’ money is being spent.
It’s called the Government Interrogating Spending Tool (GIST for short) and according to the Government brings together information previously found in "clunky" spreadsheets in a new "clear, intuitive and user-friendly" format.
Lifting the lid on Whitehall
GIST illustrates spending across Government via two systems:
The first is the Online System for Central Accounting and Reporting (OSCAR), which is what the Treasury uses for financial information reporting.
The second is the Quarterly Data Summary (QDS), which is data collected by the Cabinet Office every quarter and gives managers a snapshot of performance.
OSCAR is perhaps the most useful to the general public as it gives breakdowns of expenditure across departments and can even show you the cost of these spends per UK taxpayer.
The BBC cost £1.36 billion in the last quarter of 2012/13 for example, while pay for Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) staff cost each UK taxpayer £10.36.
At the moment only data for the four quarters of 2012/13 are available but in time more information will be added on a quarterly basis.
With GIST the Government wants to improve transparency, but it is also positioning the tool as a way for the public to help it find savings.
Joining the hunt
To reign in the growing UK budget deficit the Government has had to get tough and cut public spending.
When the Coalition came into office in May 2010 it set up an Efficiency and Reform Group (ERG) to support the Treasury in doing this.
Over 2010/11 the group has helped to make £3.75 billion worth of savings, over 2011/12 £5.5 billion was saved and in 2012/2013 the ERG made savings of £10 billion, which equates to £600 per working household.
But with a budget deficit of £120 billion there is more work to be done and the Government is marketing GIST as a way for the public to join the hunt to find further savings. The Government is confident that it will put "meaningful information and analysis at the fingertips of all".
Critics say this is just a gimmick and have pointed out the irony of the tool designed to help identify waste costing a reported £35,000 to build.
First thoughts
I’ve had a play around with GIST to see how easy it is to use and what sort of information it offers.
I found the tool useful for giving an overview of spending and putting very large numbers into context.
But I was disappointed that GIST didn’t go into all the gory details and only allows you to drill down two or three layers.
We know from reports in the media that public money is often spent on ludicrous things.
The Taxpayers’ Alliance is one pressure group that helps expose wasteful spending. It publishes an insightful Bumper Book of Government Waste each year using official statistics, media coverage and independent reports.
Over 2011/12 Cotswold Council for example, spent £19,000 on a motivational magician to boost staff morale. Read Useless public spending costs £4,500 per household for more.
You won't find any information on how much is spent on biscuits or motivational magicians with GIST. Just broad data sets labelled 'Purchase of Goods and Services' and frustratingly sections of spending labelled 'Other'. Sadly the Government Interrogating Spending Tool doesn’t really allow for much interrogation.
This is coupled with a barrage of jargon and poorly explained acronyms, which acts as a barrier to understanding. The most common are: DEL, AME and Non-Budget. You can find explanations on the About page on the website, but no explanation is offered while you are browsing through the data .
Some examples
Take the Department of Health for example.
With OSCAR you can see that its £32.8 billion cost to the UK taxpayer in the last quarter of 2012/13 was split between the NHS and a number of trusts and quangos.
Drilling down another level in NHS spending (which accounted for £13.61 billion of the total) brings you to a level with three baffling sections labelled DEL (£10.9 billion), AME (£1.84 billion) and Non-Budget (£889 million).
DEL stands for Departmental Expenditure Limits, and represents running costs that can be controlled such as paying staff, paying for buildings and buying equipment. These are usually planned in advance via the Spending Review.
AME stands for Annually Managed Expenditure and are volatile costs that can’t be predicted because they are largely demand-led. Things like Government debt interest and benefit payments come under this category.
Non-Budget spend is expenditure that is separate from Central Government budgeting, as the money comes from other sources.
Armed with this knowledge the figures start to make a bit more sense.
Clicking on DEL brings you the last layer which breaks down spending into vague headings like 'Pay' and the top cost in the sector, ‘Purchase of Goods and Services’, which came to over £9 billion. But with no further details on offer it is hard to analyse whether this spend was wasteful in anyway. Supporting information or more of a breakdown is needed to frame the information better.
So with 'Pay' for example it would be helpful to know the number of people working in a department and what different levels of workers get paid.
In many cases the information presented poses more questions than it answers. For example in the Non-Budget section of NHS spending, £10 million is marked as n/a – could this be the waste the Government is trying to hunt down?
Early days
I think GIST is a good first step in opening up the Government's books.
But while the information is presented well and is consistent, it will take a lot more detail to enable interrogation and analysis. More explanation of the jargon is needed to achieve a better understanding of the public’s finances.
GIST is currently in beta, which is the testing stage of a website. So it is perhaps unfair to be too cynical about the tool and what it can do right now. The Cabinet Office is asking people to have a go and email any suggestions on improvements to erg.mi@erg.cabinet-office.gov.uk.
In the meantime if you really want more information you can request it from the department directly via a Freedom of Information (FoI) request.
What do you think? Can the new tool can help shed any light on Government spending? Or is GIST just old information dressed up in a slick new format? Let us know in the Comment box below.
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