Open Government Partnership

Improving transparency through a digital fiscal portal service: a learning Journey

July 27, 2026 by Open Government Team No Comments | Category Uncategorized

Key terms

“fiscal information” is the data related to government revenue, tax, and public spending.

“digital fiscal portal service” is an online space where information about government budgets and finances can be easily accessed.

Introduction

“Following the money” from budget to impact. Hear from Jennie Barugh & Lucy McTernan, government and civil society Co-Chairs of the Open Government Fiscal Transparency Commitment Oversight Group as they dive into the successes and challenges of developing a digital fiscal portal service for Scotland.

Understanding the problem

We have consistently heard how difficult it is to follow the story of public finances over time.

People using the government’s fiscal information have told us they need two things:

1. accessible and reusable data, to scrutinise government decision-making.
2. clear explanations of what the data means.

“fiscal information” means the data related to government revenue, tax, and public spending e.g. the government’s budget.

In 2021 this work became part of Scottish Government’s second Open Government Action Plan. We produced the Fiscal Transparency Discovery Report. It outlined in detail the issues users of the government’s fiscal information were facing.

It also identified a potential solution that other countries had already started using, a digital fiscal portal service.

Developing the portal

The third Open Government Action Plan gave us an opportunity to explore how we might develop a fiscal portal. We committed to bring together and improve the accessibility, and presentation of the government’s current fiscal data over time.

In early 2023 our fiscal portal project developed an Alpha prototype using data on infrastructure investment, where we could test our assumptions.

It confirmed the value in visualising raw data in clear and presentable ways. It also identified limitations due to the quality and consistency of the underlying data and the manual input required as a result.

During the Beta phase, we benefited from standardised reporting formats to track changes over time using OECD’s international standard of Classification of Functions of Government.

As a result, we delivered a working fiscal portal using current Scottish Budget data in early 2024.

Challenges

Unfortunately, it required significant manual input to achieve the necessary formats to produce this version of a portal.

Without improvements to our underlying  data and systems, maintaining up-to-date data on a portal is time-consuming.

This meant further development of a portal would become more complex and technically difficult.

After careful consideration, we took the decision to pause further work on a fiscal portal until internal systems and resource capabilities were able to support it in a cost-effective way.

Lessons learned 

Through our work exploring a fiscal portal solution we learned:

• the interface of a portal, that presents data visually and makes it easy to access, can be delivered relatively easily by a skilled team.
• on the technical side, we learned the importance of underpinning data quality and systems.
• for a digital portal to be delivered and then maintained over time requires high-quality data to be provided on a regular basis.
• for this to be delivered in a cost-effective way, the data needs to be collected in an efficient way and be able to feed into the portal in an automated way.

Where are we now?

Since then we have been sharing our learning from the portal with other parts of government.

The introduction of the new corporate IT systems in the Scottish Government has the potential to address some of the challenges we have found.

We hope that in time a centralised operating model could support and service the needs of a portal, dashboard or other form of dynamic visualisation of fiscal information.

Others are also innovating with the recent publication of the Fraser of Allander Institute and Joseph Rowntree Foundation Scottish Public Spending Dashboard.

The Open Government Partnership in Scotland continues to facilitate and support fiscal transparency.

We will maintain the links we have developed and contribute enthusiastically to the development of Scotland’s next Open Government Action Plan 2026-2030.

Find out more about the project by reading the Public finances – improving the accessibility of government’s data and information: report.

Stay informed

To stay informed of future developments subscribe to the Trust and Transparency in Scotland Community Bulletin.

Get involved

If you have expertise in making data more open and transparent you might be interested in getting involved in Scotland’s Open Government Action Plan 2026-2030. Read the Member’s Guide to find out more about the role of civil society in our work.

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