Official Statistics

Government grants statistics development plan

Published 21 March 2024

1. Background

1.1 Purpose of this document

The 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 Data and 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 Data and 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.

1.3 Statistical classification

Government Grants Data and Statistics are published as Official Statistics.

2. Development Plan

The following is a list of GGMF’s actions to improve these statistics since the previous release and expected actions going forward.

2.1 Actions taken to improve the publication and underlying data since the previous release

Improving this publication

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

• Updated the documentation of the underlying data quality and the methodology for producing the publication. See the Quality and Methodology information (QMI) document published alongside this release
• Continued to understand our users: Reviewed the feedback gathered through the user consultation released as part of the last publication, and through engagement with departments.
• 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.

Improving the grants data

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

• Increased the level of data validation on the Government Grants Information System (GGIS) to improve the quality of the data input by users, for example implementing data validation checks on recipient IDs to determine which category a recipient belongs to and to ensure they are uploaded to GGIS in the correct format based on the type of recipient organisation.
• Working alongside departments, we have updated our comprehensive Government Grants Data Standard that specifies the data required in GGIS. This included changes such as:
• Continued to maintain the data standard.
• Provided additional analytical assistance to departments to improve data quality and completeness.
• Provided clear documentation and training to, and engaged with, departments regarding GGIS and the updated data standard.
• Developed specific plans with individual departments where needed, to ensure they can continue to meet these data requirements and improve data quality.

2.2 What we will do

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

• Continue to engage with users of the data and integrate further feedback. (Ongoing)
• Continue to provide training to and engage with department users regarding GGIS and the associated data standard. (Ongoing)
• Continue to develop specific plans with individual departments where needed, to ensure they can continue to meet these data requirements and improve data quality. (Ongoing)
• Review the improved recipient data and add recipient level analysis to future publications as appropriate. (Ongoing)
• Explore ways to drive consistency in the type of values (budgeted or actual) that departments provide, including exploring more automated ways of obtaining grants data for GGIS and data linkages with other grants-related platforms. (Ongoing)
• Explore the viability of collecting data on the end beneficiaries of government grant spending. (Ongoing)
• Continue to engage with 360Giving to understand updates to the 360Giving Data Standard, so that updates can be adopted into GGMF’s Government Grants Data Standard where appropriate. (Ongoing)