Do you need financial data?

“Infoculture” conducts a study of the relevance of open data on state and municipal finances. An important part of this study is the survey among users (including potential ones) of this data. We ask you to take part in it and share your impressions, experiences and needs. Now a little more about what this is all about.

Openness and quality of financial data

Of all the open data in Russia, financial data is almost the most open now. Government agencies are really trying to increase financial openness - both their own and subordinate structures. For example, the Ministry of Finance of Russia organizes various projects and events for this. In particular, he has been holding an annual BudgetApps contest (http://www.budgetapps.ru/contest) for developers and journalists since 2015. You can also recall his initiatives such as the Moscow Financial Forum and the projects " Financial Literacy " and " Budget for Citizens ".

But the main thing is that interesting data are revealed in large quantities. The huge database of the state contract system is published by the Federal Treasury through the Unified Information System . There you can find data on procurement, contracts, customers, suppliers, procurement plans, bank guarantees and other parties to procurement activities, which is subject to disclosure in accordance with 44- and 223-. Registries of subsidies and participants and non- participants in the budget process are disclosed, they are published on Budget.gov.ru. The federal budget is published, though not always in ideal, but still usable formats.

Of course, many questions arise about the quality of the data disclosed. For example, the same base for government contracts leaves much to be desired, in terms of the consistency and correctness of its content. The site of the Unified Information System is notorious for regular outages. It is also possible to remember with a bad word the web interface on Budget.gov.ru, which presents data on subsidies, so that it is impossible to get a link to a specific subsidy. In other words, there are shortcomings, but there is hope for their correction. At least, some government agencies declare their intention to improve, which is also worth a lot.
')

What is the meaning of such research

Research on demand is important because it allows you to identify user needs. Further this picture may be taken into account by data publishers.

There are more distracted value. The results of such studies, as experience shows, sometimes live long and become weighty arguments for improving the practice of openness. A striking example is the assessment of the economic potential of open data conducted in 2013 by the McKinsey & Company. The specificity of this report is that there is not even a clearly defined methodology, but the figures that appear there sometimes still cite as arguments in favor of improving the infrastructure of open data.

Returning to the topic of financial data, the fact of their relevance is obvious and without research, because they are really used. Both commercial and non-commercial products are already being created on this data, and this data is used for making strategic decisions. The task of the study, therefore, is to find out exactly how it is now: what is missing; who, how and in what quantities and in what quality uses such data; why they are used and what benefits are derived from it.

Why participate in the survey

Since this is a study of demand, it requires the opinion of data users. Most likely, there are many developers, analysts, journalists, civil activists among the people who use them. Each of these groups has its own needs, requests and complaints about the current state of affairs. Participation in the survey gives a chance to influence the situation for the better by reporting these needs, requests and complaints.

In addition, there is a chance that if this analysis is informative, similar studies will be conducted for data in other areas. That is, it may be indirectly useful to those who are not directly related to financial data. For this study, it is important for us to know the opinion of not only those who have extensive experience with open financial data, but also those who would like to work with them, but are not satisfied with their quality; those who have just begun to look closely at this area; those who came across such data only in passing, but already got some impression.

We would be grateful if you answer our questions here: Complete the survey →