DATA Act spurs DataLab
The US Treasury has launched a new analytics portal based on public spending data it collects through the DATA Act. The platform makes it easy to access the data on government appropriations and the activities, contracts, and grants they fund – across all US Federal agencies, searchable on a single platform.
Other countries considering the opportunities that enhanced access to this kind of information provides can get inspiration from some pre-defined reports, for example the:
- Homelessness Analysis: Visualizes national homeless grant spending by region
- Contract Explorer: Intuitively browse agency awards to specific contractors.
Arguably more importantly, in addition to the analytics available on the DataLab site, access to all this information is available through an application programming interface (API).
Hudson Hollister, Executive Director of the Data Coalition congratulated the Treasury’s Fiscal Service team and the Office of Management and Budget for the successful roll-out. He also points out that agencies must continue to improve the quality of their data submissions in accordance with the law’s requirements.
More here and the DataLab service is here.
