This document discusses the DPS Explorer tool, which was created by the Italian Ministry of Economic Development to increase transparency of public expenditures. The tool uses vislets (interactive visualizations) to summarize financial data from regional public accounts (CPT) on a website. It analyzes spending on areas like waste management and water systems. The goal is to help citizens understand how money is used and make administrators more accountable. The document provides examples of the vislet-based publications and previews plans to expand the tool with more dynamic data visualizations and open government initiatives.

1. DPS EXPLORER:
A TOOL FOR TRANSPARENCY
ON PUBLIC EXPENDITURE
Italian Ministry of Economic Development
2nd
International NComVA User Meeting
Norrköping, 22-23 May 2012
Carlo Amati, Simona De Luca
Department of Development and Economic Cohesion (DPS), Italy

2. Introduction to context (history and domain)
A vislet-based publication for Italian Regions
Visualisation of transparency data on
European Funds
Prospects
OUTLINE

3. OUR WALK ALONG EXPLORER
Publication of CPT
Monographies
based on vislets
DPS-NCVA collaboration
within the OECD Global
Project on “Measuring the
progress of societies”
Launch of DPS &
CPT eXplorer
Open Government: a challenge for data visualisation and public transparency
2009 2010 2011 2012
Towards Open
Government

4. TRANSPARENCY ON PUBLIC EXPENDITURE
DEVELOPMENT POLICY
Main objectives:
understand how res publica are managed
make administrators accountable
empower citizens
Transparency and participation are major factors for development
What
?
Where
?
How
much?
When
?
Who
?
KEY QUESTIONS

5. REGIONAL PUBLIC ACCOUNTS (CPT)
Financial flows (revenues and expenditures) of the wider public
sector at the regional level
One of the main sources on public expenditure in Italy
When
Where
Who
WhatWhat

6. INFORMATION ON PUBLIC EXPENDITURE
From data to visualisation, transparency and participation
Account sheets Digitisation Machine-readable format
Regional Monographies
Vislet-based
publications

7. eXploring
CPT Monographies

8. CPT MONOGRAPHIES – 2011 EDITION
Collection of regional volumes, authored by the
network of regional teams and coordinated by DPS
Focused on waste management and water systems
Multiple publication formats: pdf, xls, html (vislets)
The dynamic version of each regional
volume is a series of 11 chapters with
multiple vislets.
The production of approx. 500 vislets
for the entire collection requires
replicas for all regions with:
- same visualisations
- different selected regions and text
and was implemented directly by DPS
with custom code

9. LIVE DEMO:
A VISLET-BASED PUBLICATION FOR ITALIAN REGIONS
www.dps.tesoro.it/cpt/cpt_monografie/2011/

10. eXplorer
and Open Government

11. EXAMPLES TOWARDS OPEN GOVERNMENT /1
In response to worldwide public demand for mapping the money

12. EXAMPLES TOWARDS OPEN GOVERNMENT /2
In response to worldwide public demand for mapping the money

13. EXAMPLES TOWARDS OPEN GOVERNMENT /3
In response to worldwide public demand for mapping the money
www.openspend

14. A meta-analysis on the Managing Authorities of European Funds
TRANSPARENCY ON TRANSPARENCY
Convergence Objective
Convergence Objectives (phasing out)
Competitiveness and employment Objective
Competitiveness and employment Objective (phasing in)
European Funds
Budget 2007-2013:
~ 350 bn €

15. Contents
1. Final beneficiary
2. Project
3. Axis
4. Specific/operational objective
5. Line of intervention
6. Project description
7. Payment dates
8. Start/end dates
9. Status (on-gioing, completed)
Financial resources
1. Project cost
2. Payments
3. Amount of EU funds
4. Amount of national/other funds
File format
1. PDF
2. HTML (many pages)
3. HTML (single page)
4. XLS
5. CSV
6. XML, JSON
7. RDF, linked data
Quality of information
1. Date of last update
2. Frequency of update
3. Metadata
4. Other languages
5. Number of clicks from home page
6. No prevention from robots.txt
Searching options
1. Type of fund
2. Project
3. Operational Programme
4. Axis/objective/action
5. Beneficiary
6. Tyoe of resources
7. Location
8. Project status
Advanced functions
1. Visualisation
2. Geocoding and maps
3. Sub-regional data
SET OF COMPOSITE INDICATORS
Survey data available in open format on DPS website
Web-based survey carried out in 2010 and 2011 on approx. 450
Programmes at the regional and the national level
www.dps.tesoro.it/documentazione/uval/materiali_uval/IndagineBeneficiariFS.xls

16. LIVE DEMO:
EXAMPLE OF DATA REUSE WITH EXPLORER
To be published soon

17. PROSPECTS
DPS Open Government strategy: increasing
transparency and participation
From sets of single publications to dynamic
publications
Vislets on statistical indicators (ISTAT)
Point data on investment projects

18. THANK YOU
dps.explorer@tesoro.it
carlo.amati@tesoro.it
simona.deluca@tesoro.it