The Combined Online Information System (COINS) is a database containing

HM Treasury His Majesty's Treasury (HM Treasury or HMT), and informally referred to as the Treasury, is the Government of the United Kingdom’s economic and finance ministry. The Treasury is responsible for public spending, financial services policy, Tax ...

's detailed analysis of departmental spending under thousands of category headings.How big is the COINS database?

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

The database contains around 24 million lines of data. The database has codes for more than 1,700 public bodies in the United Kingdom including central government departments, local authorities,

NHS The National Health Service (NHS) is the term for the publicly funded health care, publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom: the National Health Service (England), NHS Scotland, NHS Wales, and Health and Social Care (Northern ...

trusts and public corporations. COINS is used by the

Office for National Statistics The Office for National Statistics (ONS; ) is the executive office of the UK Statistics Authority, a non-ministerial department which reports directly to the Parliament of the United Kingdom, UK Parliament. Overview The ONS is responsible fo ...

for statistical purposes. The Treasury describes the database as "a web based multi-dimensional database used by HM Treasury to collect financial information". Data from the COINS database is used to prepare the National Accounts.

Structure and technical details

The Combined Online Information System or COINS database is one of the biggest datasets in government. COINS uses a database called Camelot. The system is supplied by Descisys.

History

COINS replaced three separate systems previously used by the British Government, Public Expenditure System (PES), Government Online Data System (GOLD) and General Expenditure Monitoring System (GEMS).

Disclosure

The Treasury turned down requests under the

Freedom of Information Act 2000 The Freedom of Information Act 2000 (c. 36) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that creates a public right of access to information held by public authorities. It is the implementation of freedom of information legislation in t ...

for data contained in COINS prior to the

2010 United Kingdom general election The 2010 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 6 May 2010, to elect 650 Members of Parliament (or MPs) to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons. The first to be held after the minimum age for candidates was ...

. After promises during the election campaign to publish the database if elected, the

Cameron–Clegg coalition The Cameron–Clegg coalition was formed by David Cameron and Nick Clegg when Cameron was invited by Queen Elizabeth II to form a new government, following the resignation of Prime Minister Gordon Brown on 11 May 2010, after the general el ...

government made available all 120 GB of COINS data in a raw format as of 4 June 2010. The hope is that this will spur third party organisations to find innovative ways to present this information to the public.

References

External links

COINS
official site at HM Government
COINS
official site at HM Treasury
Coins (Combined Online Information System)
full coverage at ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

''
Where Does My Money Go?
User-friendly interface for COINS from the

Open Knowledge Foundation Open Knowledge Foundation (OKF) is a global, non-profit network that promotes and shares information at no charge, including both content and data. It was founded by Rufus Pollock on 20 May 2004 in Cambridge, England. It is incorporated in Engla ...

HM Treasury Case Study
{dead link, date=August 2017 , bot=InternetArchiveBot , fix-attempted=yes from ''Information Edge'' British political websites E-government in the United Kingdom Government databases in the United Kingdom HM Treasury Online databases