So What Does an Armchair Auditor Do All Day?

I’ve no idea… Because there aren’t any, apparently: Poor data quality hindering government open data programme. And as I try to make sense of that article, it seems there aren’t any because of UTF-8, I think? Erm…

For my own council, the local hyperlocal, OnTheWight, publish a version of Adrian Short’s Armchair Auditor app at armchairauditor.onthewight.com. OnTheWight have turned a few stories from this data, I think, so they obviously have a strategy for making use of the data.

My own quirky skillset, such as it is, meant that it wasn’t too hard for me to start working with the original council published data to build an app showing spend in different areas, by company etc – Local Council Spending Data – Time Series Charts – although the actual application appears to have rotted (pound signs are not liked by the new shiny library and I can’t remember how to log in to the glimmer site:-(

I also tried to make sense of the data by trying to match it up to council budget areas, but that wasn’t too successful: What Role, If Any, Does Spending Data Have to Play in Local Council Budget Consultations?

But I still don’t know what questions to ask, what scripts to run? Some time ago, Ben Worthy asked Where are the Armchair Auditors? but I’m more interested in the question: what would they actually do? and what sort of question or series of questions might they usefully ask, and why?

Just having access to data is not really that very interesting. It’s the questions you ask for it, and the sorts of stories you look for in it, that count. So what stories might Armchair Auditors go looking for, what odd things might they seek out, what questions might they ask of the data?