The Mohn Westlake Foundation is pleased to fund the Centre for Public Data (CFPD), a new, non-partisan organisation with a mission to improve the quality of the UK’s public data.

Data is crucial to the work of civil society, yet often civil society is hampered by a lack of good public data – that is, data produced or regulated by government. The CFPD works to address this issue by influencing new legislation and policy to help civil society organisations get the data they need to succeed. It also researches and document the impacts of failures to collect data.

The CFPD’s theory of change is that data collected or published by public institutions is produced because a decision has been made to do so. The CFPD believes such decisions are susceptible to pressure – and unlike many more entrenched political issues, often just a little pressure can bring about positive change. The CFPD was established because there was no existing organisation exclusively focused on this work.

In its first year of operation, the CFPD worked with peers to raise an amendment to the Agriculture Bill on the publication of farm payments data, and influenced the Government to U-turn on publishing data on the businesses given taxpayer-subsidised emergency loans during the coronavirus pandemic.

The Mohn Westlake Foundation’s grant will allow the CFPD to scale up its operations, particularly growing its capacity to work on research and advocacy.

To learn more about this project, please visit the grantees website: centreforpublicdata.org

Image: Scoreboard for baseball game at the annual field day of the FSA Farm Security Administration farmworkers community, Yuma, Arizona. Russell Lee Feb 1942 – Library of Congress