Friday lunchtime lecture: Using open data to chart government: the coalition in 163 charts

The Institute for Government’s Whitehall Monitor aims to chart government – literally. It analyses and visualises numbers from and about government – on everything from staff numbers to public perceptions – to help politicians, civil servants, civil society and the public better understand what central government looks like in the UK. The Whitehall Monitor 2015 annual report looks at what happened under the coalition government from 2010 to 2015. Gavin Freeguard, one of the authors, talks us through some of the highlights. Gavin Freeguard is a senior researcher at the Institute for Government. His work has focused on leading Whitehall Monitor and also involved transparency in government contracting and preparing politicians for government. He was previously political adviser on culture, media and sport to Harriet Harman MP and, before that, deputy director of the Orwell Prize and senior editor at the Media Standards Trust. He is a trustee of the Orwell Youth Prize, a member of the Young Policy Professionals core group, and edits a daily email on data visualisation, Warning: Graphic Content.