Methodology and sourcing

What we publish

We document public officials — elected and appointed, current and former — and the public record of their time in office: bills, motions, projects, promises, appointments and public statements. We publish only information that is a matter of public record or public interest in relation to the office held.

Every published fact has a source

Our database will not allow an entry to be published without at least one citation, and every financial figure needs its own citation. Each citation states the specific claim it supports, so you can check exactly what a source says. We prefer, in order: official records (votes and proceedings, order papers, gazettes, budget documents, court records), official government publications, and credible independent reporting.

For each source we record its title, publisher, link, publication date where known, and the date we retrieved it. Where we can, we keep an archived or stored copy in case the original disappears.

Verification

Information about officials (who holds which office, party, background) and records such as bills, motions, promises and statements is published from official and authoritative sources, each cited on the page. We keep improving how we check these against the primary record.

Projects carry a verification label, because their delivery and spending need more evidence than an announcement. A project is marked Not verified when we do not yet have enough evidence to back it, or when it has been flagged and is under review. It is marked Verified only when an editor has checked it against at least one reviewed source.

Facts, claims and reports

• Documented record: Based on official documents or records.
• Official's own claim: This is what the official or their office says. It is recorded as a claim and has not been independently established.
• Reported by third party: Based on reporting by media or civil society, not on an official record.
• Citizen-submitted evidence: Based on evidence submitted by members of the public and reviewed by our editors.

Anything that is not a documented record carries a visible label such as Official's own claim. An official having a verified account would never make their claims about their own performance verified.

Money

Budget figures are easy to misread. We record each figure with its type, currency, period and source, and we never add different stages together or treat one as another:

• Budget proposal: An amount proposed in a draft budget. It may change before approval.
• Appropriated (approved budget): An amount approved in an appropriation law. Approval does not mean the money was released or spent.
• Approved contract sum: The value of a contract as awarded.
• Revised contract sum: A contract value after variation.
• Funds released: Money released to the implementing body. Release does not mean it was spent or the work delivered.
• Reported expenditure: Money reported as spent. Spending does not by itself prove delivery.
• Estimated cost: An estimate of total cost, not an allocation.

No performance scores (yet)

We do not publish a single score or ranking for any official. Counts shown on profiles are counts of records we have documented, not official totals. A scoring method will only be introduced once a transparent, defensible methodology has been designed, published and opened to public comment.

Editorial workflow

1. A researcher drafts an entry and attaches sources.
2. An editor reviews the entry against the sources and either requests changes or publishes it.
3. Published entries show when they were last reviewed.
4. Changes after publication are logged and shown in the page history; material corrections are published as notices. See corrections and disputes.

Automated collection

Where we collect documents automatically, we respect websites' access rules and prefer official APIs and downloadable datasets. Every fetched document is archived with a fingerprint, so what a source said can always be checked later.

During the pilot, profiles of officeholders listed by an official source (the state government's website and the National Assembly's) are published automatically, before an editor has reviewed them, and cite the listing they come from. Because these sources say who holds an office but not since when, such offices are shown as held “as of” the source's date; we never invent a start date. Details from community sources such as Wikidata (dates of birth, education, previous offices) and photos are shown with their source and licence; a date of birth that sources disagree about is not published until an editor resolves it. Editors review, correct, verify or retract these entries, and every change is logged in the page history.