Government information architect Martin Belam has an interesting post about some of the limitations of the recent government data release, particularly the difficulty of – and cost associated with – cross-referencing the data with Companies House records.
Using the Guardian’s data explorer tool, you can get a comprehensive list of suppliers. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could instantly cross-reference that with the records at Companies House?
I’d love to be able to get an instant snapshot of how many of these companies are large, medium or small enterprises. Over time you could use that to measure whether the intention to open up Government service tendering to wider competition was on track or not.