SpendView : a platform for democratizing access to government budget and expenditure data

Abstract

Budgeting and expenditure data is the clearest expression of a government's priorities. Despite its importance, making it available to the public imposes hard challenges that not every administration is ready to undertake. The lack of IT capabilities and constrained resources of government agencies -regardless of size or budget- make it difficult for them to respond to the demands of information from their constituencies, transparency advocates, the press and central governments. Moreover, these administrations don't usually have access to analysis tools that help them view how the resources are being used and to detect potential risks of misspending -a critical need of elected officials, who are under everyday scrutiny. Responding to these needs, I propose the design, implementation, impact and usability studies of a software platform for analysis and visualization of government budget and expenditure data.