GOV.UK Spending

GOV.UK Spending Data

Access UK government spending and transparency data published on GOV.UK. No authentication required.

Data Model

• Transparency Document — A spending report, contract notice, or financial disclosure.
• Organisation — The government department publishing the data (e.g. 'ministry-of-defence').
• Content Purpose Supergroup — transparency for all spending/FOI data.

Key Fields (search results)

• title — Document title
• description — Summary
• public_timestamp — Publication date
• link — Path on GOV.UK (use with the detail endpoint for full data)
• organisations — Publishing department(s)
• format — Content type (e.g. 'transparency')
• display_type — Human-readable type (e.g. 'Transparency data', 'FOI release')

Key Fields (document detail)

• base_path — Canonical URL path
• content_id — UUID
• details.attachments — Downloadable data files (CSV, ODS, PDF)
• details.body — HTML body with context and methodology
• document_type — Schema type (e.g. 'corporate_report', 'transparency')
• links.organisations — Full organisation metadata

Gotchas

• Spending search filters on content_purpose_supergroup=transparency.
• filter_organisations takes org slug (e.g. ministry-of-defence, not display name).
• Pagination via start (0-based offset) and count (results per page).
• Some results may be FOI releases rather than spending data — filter by format if needed.
• Detail endpoint is the GOV.UK content API: /api/content/{path}.