COINS: UK Government Expenditure Data, 2010-2013

Quarterly in-year time series data from the UK's Combined Online Information System (COINS), a database of public sector financial expenditure. The data was collected by HM Treasury and used for official reports like the Budget and Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses until the system was replaced in 2013. It was released in June 2010 to make key parts of government spending data accessible to the public.

Use Cases

• Analyzing quarterly trends in UK government expenditure based on the in-year time series data.
• Comparing budget outturns to planned spending based on the outturn-to-budget comparison datasets mentioned.
• Drilling down behind previously released high-level aggregates of public sector finance.
• Interpreting raw COINS data for research on fiscal policy and public sector accountability.

Strengths

• Data originates from HM Treasury, the UK government's finance ministry, indicating an authoritative source.
• Includes quarterly updated in-year time series data, providing temporal granularity.
• Released under the OGL-UK-3.0 license, permitting open use and redistribution.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The COINS system was replaced in 2013, so the data's temporal coverage is historical and ends around that year.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale analysis.

Provenance

Source

HM Treasury, UK Government

Collection Method

Collected financial data from across the UK public sector into the COINS database.

Time Range

Data spans at least from 2010 to 2013, with quarterly updates during that period.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-08 13:33:21.137478; freshness should be verified as the underlying data is historical.

Geography

United Kingdom