How we develop a data specification

If you think you need a data specification, we need you to be able to answer some questions for us upfront.

What we need to know first:

• what do people want to use the data for?
• which questions do people want the data to answer for them?
• who will use the data?
• who will create the data?
• who owns the data - who’s the trusted source or domain expert?
• does any data currently exist?
• is there legislation for this policy/concept?
• who’s the policy lead and what policy area does it relate to?

What we’ll need later on:

• a list of all organisations that need to publish the data
• category data

If you’ve been able to answer all those questions and we think you need a data specification too, we’ll run a data discovery so we can understand the data need for the planning concern and gather enough information to start working on a data model.

We will publish a technical specification for the data model we are working on at the earliest possible opportunity.

Make a request for a data specification

If you’ve read all of this and still think you need a data specification, you can fill in this form and we’ll add your request to our backlog.

Get involved

We work in the open and encourage you to contribute to our GitHub discussions so that our specifications work well for everyone. You can also read about our community principles for more information on contributions.