The Public Penny
Trace every publicly recorded pound

Methodology

How The Public Penny gathers, labels and publishes spending records — and what we will never claim.

What we do

We collate publicly available budgets, payment registers, contract notices and audited accounts from UK councils and national datasets. Every figure is linked to the source it came from and labelled with a confidence status.

What we will not do

  • • Claim to show every penny unless the underlying published data genuinely supports it.
  • • Fabricate missing links in the Penny Trail — where a link is unknown we say so.
  • • Imply misconduct because a supplier receives large payments or a contract has been modified.
  • • Publish personal information belonging to private individuals.
  • • Silently overwrite previously published figures — every change is versioned.

Distinct financial concepts

We keep the following ideas separate. Confusing them is one of the most common ways spending data is misread:

  • • Budgeted — planned spending for the year.
  • • Allocated — assigned to a service or programme.
  • • Committed — a contract or purchase order has been signed.
  • • Invoiced — the supplier has billed the council.
  • • Paid — the payment has been made.
  • • Forecast — projected end-of-year position.
  • • Audited final — reconciled in the council's audited accounts.

Confidence statuses

Official source
Sourced directly from an official council or government publication.
Audited
Reconciled against the council's audited final accounts.
Council-published
Taken from a council-published dataset, not yet audited.
Provisional
Provisional figures that may be revised.
Awaiting review
Imported from a source but not yet manually reviewed.
Incomplete coverage
The underlying dataset is known to be incomplete.
Redacted at source
The original record was redacted at source.
Demonstration data
Illustrative example. Not an official council record.

Coverage and limits

UK councils publish spending in different formats, with different reporting thresholds and categories. England's transparency framework requires publication of certain categories such as expenditure over £500 — which is why published transaction registers do not equal literally all spending. Scottish local authorities publish through a variety of routes including Public Contracts Scotland, annual accounts and open-data portals.