"How Much?" is not Enough: an Analysis of Open Budget Initiatives

A worldwide movement towards the publication of Open Government Data is taking place, and budget data is one of the key elements pushing this trend. Its importance is mostly related to transparency, but publishing budget data, combined with other actions, can also improve democratic participation, allow comparative analysis of governments and boost data-driven business. However, the lack of standards and common evaluation criteria still hinders the development of appropriate tools and the materialization of the appointed benefits. In this paper, we present a model to analyse government initiatives to publish budget data. We identify the main features of these initiatives with a double objective: (i) to drive a structured analysis, relating some dimensions to their possible impacts, and (ii) to derive characterization attributes to compare initiatives based on each dimension. We define use perspectives and analyse some initiatives using this model. We conclude that, in order to favour use perspectives, special attention must be given to user feedback, semantics standards and linking possibilities.